tipp_ex DannyH Tipp-ex only serves to draw attention to the error. It doesn’t erase the mistake it just covers it in a lumpy white residue turning the rewriting process into an uncomfortably 3 dimensional experience. If you turn the paper over and hold it up to the light you can see the original inscription in reverse, unless you tippex the other side as well, which would be insane, or cross it out before tippexing. The correct name for tippex is correction fluid, sounds like a dominatrix’s golden shower. The name is incorrect. The fluid does not correct anything, it merely whitewashes the error. Now that almost everything is electronic tippex must be being used less and less. Application forms and bookkeeping ledgers will be its last refuge. Good riddance I say. The tippex mouse is a different matter, however, and could wipe out the liquid tippex market for all but the most nostalgic of consumers. It delivers a constant running strip of convincingly white and, most importantly, uniformly flat covering material. It is ready to write on almost immediately. Never again will one have to wait five minutes unable to do anything while the mini mountain range of “liquid paper” congeals, only to find upon reapplying the pen that the hardness of the fluid is only eggshell thick, the point of the pen penetrating into the oozing yolk, ruining the ballpoint and, more often than not, bursting through the paper to render the entire document useless. If the paper has not been penetrated, it is likely the original error will have been revealed by your premature attempt, bordered by the sludge formed by the mixture of ink and tippex. At this point there are two options remaining to try and salvage your work. You can wait until the tippex is really dry, scratch it off, and start again or you can apply more tippex over the top. The first option leads to ripping, accompanied by the uncomfortable feeling that there is no permanence to your correction. Will the recipient of the corrected document scratch off the tippex to have a good laugh at your mistake? Paranoia should be listed as a side effect on the side of the bottle. The second option is even worse. Like some geological process, the sedimentary layers of your paper landscape are building upon each other, creating some weird organic sculpture in the middle of your essay. After waiting half an hour to make sure it has dried rock hard, you set about trying to rewrite your word across the shiny ridges and valleys, the now utterly non-absorbant peaks and hillocks. The result is like some terrible cry for help painted on the floor in blood, or an arrangement of stones on a desert island. If this happens when filling in the only copy of an application form which has to be in the post for the same day, the effect can be psychologically devestating. More than enough to push some desperate unemployed person over the edge. Thankfully, Tippex looks certain to die out, taking its false promises of nullifying the consequences of error with it, but until it is stamped out fully, I believe they should be forced by law to put health warnings on the bottles. May I suggest: Warning - This solution will only make things worse. Paper is not a liquid. Use only if able to withstand an exercise in futility. 010423 ... flo i actually tried to read all of that but unfortunately i started tripping about halfway through 010424 ... DannyH Fabric paint is cheaper and you're not meant to eat it, you're supposed to snort it. 010424 ... pipedream reminds me of my cousin. blanco, tippex, whiteout, 'that white hidey stuff'...just cross it out, dude 031009 what's it to you? who go blather from