Oddly, I can find no Wikipedia entry for the Blötzmann Dots. Odd, because they are without question the most important dots of the past one hundred years. They are, of course, odd in themselves. Blötzmann always referred to them as his “odd dots”, leaving it to the wider world to dub them with his own name. Blötzmann was by no means a modest man, but he had his moments of diffidence, and the act of dot nomenclature was one of them.

Blötzmann is thought to have named the dots after Dot Tint, bluestocking sister of the noted mezzotintist Rex Tint. In a particularly hectic twentieth-century year, Blötzmann and Dot had a fling, and it was when they were holed up in a love-nest in one of Ruskin’s favourite Swiss villages that Blötzmann, one snowbound wintry weekend, first conceived of the dots that would bring him fame.

It is possible that the dots are not mentioned by the Wikipedia for security reasons. After all, it is their military applications that have changed the world. These were not foreseen by Blötzmann, who is on record as stating that, initially at least, he considered the dots of most benefit to gardening enthusiasts, potters, and hikers. It may have been Dot Tint herself who, recognising the dots’ versatility, sent a sketch of them to a bigwig at a top secret intelligence facility. In interviews later in life, she denied having done so, and it is perhaps one for the historians to winkle out, now that Blötzmann, Dot Tint, and indeed the military bigwig are all doornail dead and have long since fed the worms in their respective burial grounds.