The Geothermal Exploration Society for Greenwashing Britain

As some of you may know I worked for about twenty years in the oil industry before moving into retail...  

Yesterday, an event happened which I predicted to myself only last month.  The Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain has decided that its name is not PC enough anymore and it is undergoing a rebranding in the hope that the Greta Thunbergs and Robin Inces of the world will no longer see it as a fundamental evil in society.  

James Churchill, PESGB President, relates to me below that from now on the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) will now be called the Geoenergy Society of Great Britain (GESGB) in order to pretend that all the energy comes from geothermal and very little from dead fossils.  Of course we are promised that soon in the future all the cars will be electric and there will be no more fossil fuels – all the energy will come from cleaner alternatives like nuclear and fusion (if it ever happens) or by renewable wind farms or …whatever… underneath the greenwashing the oil industry suffers a deeper existential crisis – what’s it for?  Despite the fact that most of the world’s power still comes from fossil fuels the oil industry is clearly as doomed as the coal industry that Boris “thanked” Mrs Thatcher for dismantling yesterday… It’s really no shock that the PESGB wants to change its name – is it greenwashing or an admission that the name is now offensive?

So what will the GESGB be for?  It used to exist ‘to promote for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of petroleum exploration’ but now it is going ‘to advance for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of subsurface energy and related technologies’.  So pretty much the same thing but a bit more woolly.  Wandering over Linkedin I see many of my ex-colleagues clothing themselves in sheeps’ clothing without actually changing the nature of their job as their job becomes more and more politically verboten.

As to how I ended up in the oil industry.  Reader, I went down the Job Centre … of course as a career it was never exactly PC even in the 1990s but it seems sad that we have now reached the end of the road.  I thought the PESGB was great.  Very jolly, didn’t take itself too seriously and encouraged everyone to join.  I remember the company paying everyone’s membership in the good times.  Even the secretaries and probably the cleaners too.  But that world is gone now and soon it will be as dead as the fossils that have been heating our homes for over 150 years until they made the planet too hot… 

Dear Anthony,

Should the PESGB change its Charitable Objects and Name?

Whether we broaden the scope of the PESGB in response to the Energy Transition, has been a question for the Society for at least the last two years. Indeed, I recall Council meetings discussing the topic when I was Aberdeen Director Elect in 2019.

Expanding the remit of the Society is a significant undertaking and the first since the society was formed in 1964. The membership of the PESGB is loyal to the Society and passionate about the industry they work in. Consequently, any change to our Charitable Objects and Name is not taken lightly. Most importantly, this is a question about including other energy sectors, that our members may work in during their careers, rather than the exclusion of petroleum. 

As a charity, the society’s membership must vote on this to make any changes. The question of potentially changing our Charitable Objects and Name has been explored on behalf of the membership by an Energy Transition Working Group. There were some energised meetings as this difficult and emotive subject was discussed. Petroleum will continue to play the lead role in all that we do, as this represents the careers of the bulk of our members, but it was felt pertinent and timely to ask the membership about the future direction of the Society. Expanding the remit of the Society is limited to subsurface energy sources, and related technologies including CCUS, with the deliberate exclusion of other energy sources e.g. wind.

It is proposed that we change the current PESGB Charitable Objects from:

‘to promote for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of petroleum exploration’ 

to: 

‘to advance for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of subsurface energy and related technologies’.

The change in wording from ‘promote’ to ‘advance’, allows more scope for the society to engage with the public/schools in outreach activities.

To reflect a change in our Charitable Objects it is proposed that we change the Society’s name from the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) to the Geoenergy Society of Great Britain (GESGB). 

A new name would not only reflect the inclusion of other subsurface energies, but also societies interpretation of energy, as reflected by the rebranding of University courses that many of you would have attended under another name, and traditionally O&G focused companies. The Society will continue to primarily represent petroleum but will then be prepared for a future with a different energy mix.

The proposed changes to our Charitable Objects and Name will be separate votes and take place at the AGM in September 2021. It will be held on a one member, one vote basis.

For an opportunity to review the rationale of the Energy Transition Working Group, and the proposed changes, follow the link to our website where the full report is available.

Kind regards,

James Churchill, PESGB President

Is it wrong to laugh at John?

 

A personal apology to @Jon_Trickett. Please retweet pic.twitter.com/OgTxAaYuoz

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) August 6, 2021

The strange social lives of Star Trek The Next Generation...

I was just giving up on this blog after years of neglecting it when Google AdSense wrote in to suggest, after years of ignoring its instance, that I could place adverts on it.  

As they have kindly got me started with a pecuniary donation of 3p I thought I’d better think up some content to put on it…

I have recently been wandering through Star Trek The Next Generation on Netflix and am now up to series 5 … although I spent a very long time stuck on Series 1 as for some reason Series 1 is a bit of a slog.  At the time of its transmission I didn’t watch the program except irregularly so although I remember some episodes really well – like the one where they get stuck in a hotel and Worf says “let’s try this turbolift” only to find it’s just a lift – I didn’t have much idea of the overall running narratives.

Chief amongst my annoyances as a young viewer was Counselor Troi – a kind of psychic Social Worker / Human Resources person in space who has the poison chalice of saying things to people like “I sense you are angry” when the person in question is particularly livid.  You may call me sexist if you like … although watching it again I did particularly enjoy the episode “Distaster” where the pedophobic Captain Picard gets stuck in a lift with three children while psychoanalyst Troi is confronted with more concrete problems than usual like trying to fly a ship without any power.  I suppose it’s a testament to the far reaching view of Star Trek that the twenty first century is now full of Counselor Trois.  One has to wonder what they’re going to do when it gets to 2200 and the warp coil still hasn’t been invented. It’s sooner than you think … Possibly the most amusing aspect of Troi however, are the once or twice a series appearances of Majel Barrett as her mother Lwaxana Troi who effortlessly puts down Lieutenant Commander Troi at regular intervals and in important meetings by referring to her patronisingly in front of her colleagues as “little one” while simultaneously hitting on Captain Picard at every opportunity.

Jonathan Frakes’s Commander Riker used to slightly annoy me due his physical similarity to my old deputy headmaster Mr Thorne.  He also seems to have the deputy headmasterly role of disciplining the lower ranks which often does not go well.  Riker’s redeeming feature is that unlike Mr Thorne who was a living humour vacuum he does seem to have a sense of humour and also to be at ease with his sexuality to a level that Captain “Mr Data, I'd be delighted to offer any advice I have on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know” Picard is not.  Even Data seems to get more action than Picard.  Well, he keeps a cat in his cabin and a hologram of Tasha Yar in his desk.

At various points Troi seems to have something going on with “that nice Commander Riker” as Lwaxana describes him.  Troi – or was it Riker? – explains the on-off nature of their relationship as being result of everyone in the 22^nd century being beyond sexual exclusivity...

 …an argument Lwaxana doesn’t buy.  Of course the real reason is that Riker like Kirk is required to get off with someone several times a series and the writers thought that Riker & Troi having a stable relationship was dull.  Later on Colm Meaney’s Chief O’Brien is allowed to get married and have children but then he’s not meant to be dashing like Frakes. 

Carrying on the tradition that only unconventionally attractive persons in Starfleet can have a wife or child later still Worf has a son – possibly the most unlucky child in Starfleet as his mother is murdered right in front of him and then Worf sends him to live with his elderly parents who can’t cope and then refuses to see him when he hurts his spinal column that is then removed and replaced in a dangerous medical experiment.  

Ah, yes, now I see why all these people need a Counselor – it’s because they all have PTSD.  It’s strange how given the near demise of the ship every three weeks so many people have decided that a starship is the best place to bring up a family.

Even Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher has grown on me if only because I admire his stoicism in being able to relate such huge chunks of exposition.

The Borg are the Cybermen.  There I said it.  Although I did think it was clever how Q introduced Picard to the Cybermen Borg in order to put Picard in his place and warn him of the future…. Q’s obsession with wearing the Starfleet uniform always amuses me as I find the militaristic nature of Starfleet somewhat odd at times.  Is that really the future – everybody in the army?  Not that there’s anything wrong with the army but I hope they don’t make it so…

 

Also why does Picard (a Frenchman?) drink Earl Grey instead of Coffee?

We will never know…

EURO 2004

Recent events have reminded me of this article which in my days of writing free articles to promote Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia I sent into the local online newspaper The Croydon Citizen which was "written by the public" because they were too tight to generate all their own content.  It promptly went bust.  That aside every time there's a Euro tournament I think of this...

Owen Jones of the Independent thinks so and tell us so in an article on Water Cannon.   He is of course quoting Martin Luther King’s second most famous soundbite : “Riot is the language of the unheard”.  (see here)

Water cannon is a very bad thing that can lead to activists getting a bit wet...  So Owen presses more buttons than Matt Smith when pretending the Tardis console propels a fiberglass box to all corners of Universe [Mark Duggan, don’t trust the PoPo, Police state blah blah blah].  But do rioters actually have anything to say worth listening to?  

Well let’s talk about the riots.  Not ones where large sections of Croydon were burnt to the ground, 5 people were killed nationwide and 15 people seriously injured in 2011.  But the EURO 2004 riots in which my old office building lost 8 plate glass windows for which anyone has yet to receive any compensation, a bus driver friend of mine was rocked about in his bus and Portugal deported 11 people.  I say riot, but according to the PoPo this was not a riot just a “disturbance”.  So no one gets a payout...  They just claim on the insurance and move the office out of Croydon.  But more than £250,000 of damage was caused to property and at least ten men were jailed for a total of 22 years (see here)

In 2004 “serious disturbances” broke out in Croydon, Birmingham, Wakefield in West Yorkshire, Boston in Lincolnshire and a number of towns in Hertfordshire on the 14 June.  The bout of "serious public disorder in Croydon" lasted for an hour, between 10.15pm and 11.15pm and involved 400 people including “Judge’s son” Matthew Carroll, 19.  In mitigation Anthony Heaton-Armstrong, for Carroll, said his client had argued with his girlfriend that day and drunk six to seven cans of lager, six to seven bottles of beer and three to four tequilas.  So if there was a political message it may have been Tramlink + SkyTV makes off pitch hooliganism more easy. (see here)

I expected academia to be able to make some sense of it all but “Crowd psychology, public order police training and the policing of football crowds” by  James Hoggett and Clifford Stott simply boasted that “The success of the tournament in terms of the absence of collective disorder among fans is now widely acknowledged in policy circles throughout Europe”.  Which is good because otherwise C.J.Scott would have to do a rewrite of “Preparing for Euro 2004: policing international football matches in Portugal” commissioned by the Portuguese Public Security Police.  Suffice to say most of these documents are about how to separate hardcore hooligans from the easily led.  Something that’s about as easy as proving Tommy Robinson guilty of mortgage fraud.

Also facing prison was Terry Kevin who's family “wept as he was led from the dock at Croydon” after he was caught throwing bottles at the PoPo.  Judge Cedric Joseph said sternly that "Deterrent sentences have to be passed to make clear that behaviour of this kind is utterly intolerable" and other empty clichés repeated almost word for word in 2011 to a new generation.   Kevin was banned from watching footy in pubs for 6 years and had previous convictions for assault.  (see here)

The 2004 “not riots” were also international.   20 UK football fans were held after a punch up in Portugal  on the 16th of June.  Alan Walker, 29, was banned from matches for three years.  His doting father commenting to the Guardian “He's a nutter when he's had a drink. He's a lager lout and can't handle his drink.   He's very easily led - you can tell him to do something when he's had a few drinks and he'll do it.”  As Martin Luther King might say “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” (see here)

A more mature contributor to the fun in Portugal, Garry Mann, was finally extradited back to Portugal in 2010 to do his 2 years bird.  “The Labour government and Crown Prosecution Service have betrayed me,” he bemoaned to the BBC.  Mann claimed he was arrested, tried and convicted within 48 hours and had appealed to the European Court of Human Rights …who rejected his application.  "I wasn't even there. It's a stitch up” he’d claimed since 2004 when he was deported by Judge Filipe Marques who identified him as a “ringleader” along with 11 others.   (see here)

And of course it wouldn’t be a youth crime story without some parents insisting in the teeth of the evidence that their child is a nice boy really.  Step forward Linda Jackson the mother of David Jackson (28) from Peterborough.  "He is being made to look like a yob and a hooligan and he's nothing like that at all.”  The Judge however decided he was and sentenced him to seven months in jail suspended for three years. (see here)

The question is why?  Unemployment was at 5%.  The UK economy grew by an estimated 3.1%.  2004 was actually the best year economically since 2000, well ahead of the 2.2% growth recorded in 2003.  But England lost 5-6 in a penalty kick and these conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.   Euro 2004 was the language of the unheard.  So what were they saying?  Perhaps not everyone shared in the prosperity?  Or maybe some people are bad.  Or both.

There must be sociological reason because otherwise what would the political class have to do if acts of mass violence were simply incoherent?   Or as Martin Luther King might put it “The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”

The day I was stupid enough to use SmartShop...

 

Yesterday I used Sainsbury’s Smartshop.  Sainsbury has been desperate for me to shop using SmartShop for ages and keeps offering me £5 gift vouchers to do so …so out of a desire for cheaper booze I thought I would attempt it once.  I did so.  I had had an idea – go in, buy one thing over £5, go out.

Once in however, I bought 11 things.  Scan things before you put them in your trolley sounds very simple.  However, once I was traversing the aisles the distractions of loud children, angry parents, folk with trolly rage and aisle cloggers and people who are unable to read the signs saying “you should shop alone” led me to forget the very simple process and very soon I was putting things in the trolley without being sure whether or not I had scanned them…

When I got to the checkout I counted them all carefully for the 11^th time to make sure they matched what was on the handset and with the help of the assistant put it through the till with a single beep.

Then before exiting I counted the things into plastic bags ticking them off the receipt as I did so to triple check I had not missed anything.  I had missed a loaf of bread …so I had to go round the tills again to put one item through the self serve till… then circumnavigate the security guard who wasn’t looking at me suspiciously even though I was acting suspiciously because I am conspicuously white.

Then I began to imagine what would happen if I did this all the time.  Soon I would be in prison charged with stealing a loaf of bread like Jean Valjean and then my life would spiral down into stigmatised doom as my criminal record would lower me onto even lower societal rungs than I am on at the moment.  Very soon I would end up like Sean Bean in Time…

It is true that Sainsburys had given me a £5 voucher but I had to do so much work and worry to avail myself of this fiver that it would have been easier to just work for Mr Sainsbury’s – and less risky since if the float doesn’t add up they just dock your wages or sack you rather than going through the bother of a criminal prosecution.

It's all over bar the...

 

...herd immunity.

I'm not saying Linkedin has me typecast but...

 

...it doesn't seem to have very high aspirations for me.

I mean, a porter.. That sounds even lower than a waiter... 

Supermac and Great British Railways

 

It's one of the wonders of the Internet (and Indeed Youtube) that you can now find footage online of famous speeches that were only previously related in newspapers in reported speech.  With the launch of the new "not a nationalisation" central rail body I found myself thinking about Harold MacMillan's infamous "selling the family silver speech" and due to the wonders of technology we can now see it online in all its original smoke filled room and dinner jacketed glory.  This truly is a masterclass in comic timing and how to put the boot into your successor.

Harold explained later in a much longer speech to the House of Lords (also available online if you search for it and have a very high boredom threshold) that it wasn't privatisiation its self he was sending up but the treatment of assets as income.

As one of our 20 subscribers noticed ... Pear Shaped in Dystopia failed to stream to Facebook on Wednesday...

 ...but it did happen as is proven below...

Not part of the Youtube Partner Program? Tough we'll flood your feed with ads anyway and keep all the money

You’re receiving this email because we’re updating the YouTube Terms of Service (“Terms”) to clarify our terms and provide transparency to our users. The Terms were similarly updated in the United States in November 2020. These changes shouldn't significantly alter your access or use of the YouTube service.

A summary of the changes:

Facial recognition restrictions: The Terms of Service already state that you cannot collect any information that might identify a person without their permission. While this has always included facial recognition information, the new Terms make that explicitly clear.

YouTube’s right to monetize: YouTube has the right to monetize all content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program.

Royalty payments and tax withholding: For creators entitled to revenue payments, such payments will be treated as royalties from a U.S. tax perspective and Google will withhold taxes where required by law.

Please make sure you read the updates to the Terms carefully. The new Terms will take effect on June 1, 2021 for users outside the U.S. By continuing to use YouTube after this date, you are agreeing to the new Terms. Please note, if you allow your child to use YouTube Kids, then you are agreeing to the new Terms on behalf of your child as well.

Times must be hard down Google...

Sandhurst

 

Truly bizarre old 1974 episode of Panorama on iplayer at the moment.  I switched it on to see pointless army training sadism of which there was some before it turned into a series of training exercises for the then worry of the day - mass civil disobedience.  Very soon everyone was sitting round tables discussing the Unions bringing down capitalism.  Later everyone is in regimental dinner dress discussing earnestly what might be wrong with a military dictatorship (in practice rather than principle).  Sandhurst's boss meanwhile was filmed taking about how there's no conflict between the "profession of arms" and Christian teaching.  Well, if you disregard the beatitudes.  Somewhere amongst the cadets was a long ago disposed of and disgraced future Tory MP looking baby faced.  And there was a brief appearance by the seldom seen Princess Alice.  It all ended up in a war game where a supposed loony left leader and a supposed neo fascist MP set supposed villagers against each other... Still it's not like there was a real plot by the military to destabilise Harold Wilson... 

Pear Shaped March 26th

https://www.facebook.com/pearshapedcomedy/?view_public_for=252156881518836 

Laurel and Hardy's frustrated '40s...

Well, I haven’t posted on this blog nearly enough so I’d better post something and I thought I’d vaguely mention that recently I’ve been spending my lockdown watching the 20^th Century Fox Laurel and Hardy films as I've had time to watch all the Hal Roach ones again and ... I'm running out of great films to fill the evenings with...

These films have a terrible reputation but actually they’re not as bad as their reputation … Indeed, some of them – for example Jitterbugs – when you actually watch them are as good as some of their earlier Hal Roach output.  For those of you who aren’t obsessive Laurel and Hardy fans here’s a very quick backstory in case you need it.  From the late 1920s to the late 1930s Laurel and Hardy worked almost exclusively for producer Hal Roach who hired them out to MGM occasionally as supporting artists in larger productions.  Roach had Stan and Ollie on separate contracts timed to end and restart at different times with the aim of preventing them negotiating with him as a team.  Towards the end of the 1930s Stan decided to break with this arrangement and eventually they both went off to work at 20^th Century Fox.  However, largely due to the loss of creative control this gave “the boys” these films are generally regarded as inferior.

Actually they’re not all that bad.  Okay Great Guns is awful I won’t even review it …

…but A-Haunting We Will Go is quite fun.  Laurel and Hardy are sharing the star billing here with long forgotten magician Harry August Jansen (Dante the Magician) … both L&H and Dante are talents that the studio don’t seem to know how to utilise so have shoved together into a B-movie. 

Like many B movies there is a gangster/crime plot that drives events.  Indeed, one gets the impression that these stock plots weren’t intended as comedies at all but the comedy and magic has been stuck on because they’re not good enough to be taken seriously as serious drama.  Lou Breslow went on to write for Abbot and Costello (Well, somebody had to) and his co-writer Stanley Rauh had previously been writing thrillers and romances.   The result is an odd but amusing muddle.  Even Laurel and Hardy’s poorer pictures have their moments – the opening of this film where Stan and Ollie are exchanging pleasantries with the authorities having just been released from prison only to suddenly both be simultaneously kicked up the arse and down the prison steps is a masterpiece of comic timing.  There’s great fun to be had too as Hardy magically walks in and out of two phone booths that seemingly teleport him between them much to his own confusion … and the runabout farce at the end is enjoyably silly.

Jitterbugs holds up very well with a passable plot and Laurel and Hardy given a lot of latitude to broaden their characters.  The plot is driven by pills that purportedly turn water into petrol – a concept that’s completely ridiculous but Laurel and Hardy are believably stupid enough to be taken in by.  Hardy gets to be a southern gentleman and Laurel gets to do a bit of drag…

The Dancing Masters sounds an equally ridiculous concept but Laurel and Hardy just about get away with it.  Part WWII propaganda film like Jitterbugs this carries on a trend of “the boys” getting mixed up with crazy inventors (this time it’s an invisible ray gun).  It isn’t great but it isn’t as awful as it sounds … there’s something truly bizarre about L&H running a dance school.  Again there is a gangster plot going on with one of the heavies played by a very young Robert Mitchum who looks as if he’s wandered in off the set of a film noir and onto the wrong sound stage by mistake…

In the Big Noise Laurel and Hardy (who work in a detective agency as cleaners) end up as minders to yet another mad inventor as all the good detectives are doing important WWII work.  There’s some obviously reworked material here …notably from Oliver the Eighth … but some original twists are put on it.  Where in Oliver the Eighth there’s an entire meal eaten as a mime because Mae Bush’s character is mad … here we have Laurel and Hardy eating an entire meal in synthetic pill form which is funnier than it sounds.   The claustrophobic berth scene from Berth Marks (which also was kind of reworked for Pardon Us) is reworked yet again but it’s worth it for the remark of the person forced to share a bed with Oliver and Stan about Oliver – “Is this all one person?” which I found very funny for no logical reason…  As a film this one hangs together quite well.

The Bullfighters is a bit weird but Stan gets to play a double role which is fun.  L&H are detectives again for no really good plot reason – they’re on the hunt for a fugitive but get nowhere.  Well, the plot reason is to make them run into a man who thinks they’re responsible for him spending 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit who spends most of the film threatening "Someday I'll run across them again! And when I do, I'm going to skin them alive! First the little one, then the big one! I'm going to skin them alive!!"  Eventually this does come to pass and we see Stan and Ollie walking down the corridor as animated skeletons with normal heads in a finale that’s both sadistic, bizarre and memorable… if not for the right reasons.  Well, it gave me a nightmare and I’m 47.

After the end of the Bullfighters 20th Century Fox’s B movie department was closed and everyone was made redundant.  The Bullfighters became an unexpected hit and then the studio offered to reopen the department just for Laurel and Hardy only to discover that after you’ve made people redundant they seldom want to work for you again…  

Fortunately this wasn’t their last film as they still made Atoll K which is a mess too but has one of my favourite pieces of dialogue when Stan and Ollie try to form the government of the sparsely populated island and Oliver appoints himself as President and Stanley as “the People”….

…But I don’t have room or time to review that or Air Raid Wardens or Nothing but Trouble (both of which I’ve skipped because they were made by MGM) and Tree in a Test Tube is simple enough to google…

The Advertising of Sherlock Holmes

 

Just switched on ITV4 seeing The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett was on but caught the ad break.   It always seems to be the ad break when I switch on ITV4 so I decided it was time for some elementary deduction as to what is causing this phenomenon.  The Sherlock Holmes TV episodes were almost all 50 minutes long with 10 minutes left over for add breaks when they first went out 37 years ago in 1984.  Advert breaks have doubled in the last 20 years so ITV4 now stretches out each 50 minute episode to an hour and 10 minutes stretching the ad break from 10 minutes to 20.  That means whenever you switch over randomly to ITV4 you have a 30 per cent chance of landing in one of the 3 six and a half minute ad breaks per show.  Most people will lose interest after 5 minutes of no real content and leave having only absorbed advertising.  ITV4 is a con.  Don't be tempted.  Don't go there.  Don't switch over. 

Be careful of men who look like Rex Harrison...

 

The trouble with conspiracy theories is they’re never as imaginative and bizarre as one feels they should be but … the other day I was wandering over Wikipedia when I came across a bizarre story about the CIA. 

Apparently when they made full head disguises for their agents rather than sculpt heads from scratch they rang up some Hollywood studios in search of existing aluminium moulds of heads that they could create new latex moulds from and made everyone look like old Hollywood actors.

Ex-CIA chief of disguise (or at least that’s what she says she is/was) Jonna Mendez told Wired magazine last year (see here) that masks are additive with the drawback that they can’t be animated.  So it’s important that a mask should match the “donor” as closely as possible.  

It turned out then that actor Rex Harrison was the most donor friendly aluminium mould to make heads from and therefore all large headed CIA men in masks on missions now look like various different permutations of the late Rex Harrison.

In case this story sounds a tough buy here’s a couple of links to photos on Jonna’s website …  

(If they don't work try copying into your browser directly rather than redirecting)

This is her in a mask explaining masks and their benefits to President George HW Bush…

https://www.themasterofdisguise.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Jonna-at-White-House-1.jpg

 …and here’s a blurry picture of her with her mask removed (as befits a conspiracy theory website) …

https://www.themasterofdisguise.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Jonna-at-White-House-2.jpg 

As to what this tells us about the bigger picture of human nature etc I cannot tell but, well, it’s on Wikipedia so it must be true…

Her website is here https://www.themasterofdisguise.com