Marmalade Quill Shelf Institute

Tag: glass

Announcing The Annual Falling Prize
The Laboratory is delighted to announce the creation of the Annual Falling Prize, to be awarded for the most elegant fall in a household setting.

Categories
- Best Fall by a Mug
- Best Fall by a Vase
- Best Fall by a Book, with a special mention for thudding
- Most Patient Cat, awarded for the longest pause before a push
Judging

Entries will be judged by a panel of three cats and one reluctant human. Scores are given for grace, sound and the look on the owner’s face. Judges may not accept bribes unless the bribes are cheese.

How To Enter

Please send a short written description of your fall, or a drawing, or a small sample of the debris. Photographs are welcome, but only if the cat approves.

Rules

Entries must be genuine falls. Staged falls are permitted only if the cat looks sincere. No entry may be weighted, glued or tied, and no entry may contain a person lying on the floor pretending to be a vase.

Past Winners

Though this is our first year, the committee has retrospectively awarded prizes to the most memorable falls of previous years. These include the Great Lamp Slide, the Shelf Collapse of the Spring and a spoon which, we are told, simply gave up.

Deadline

Entries close at the end of the season or at the first sign of the Professor napping on the form, whichever happens first.

Sponsorship

The Prize is proudly supported by the Biscuit Trust, who have generously donated a biscuit. Additional sponsors are welcome. Opportunities include naming a category, sponsoring a shelf, or lending a cat for the ceremony.

The winner will receive a golden trophy shaped like a teacup. It will be placed on a shelf, where it will be pushed off, and we expect to award it twice.
October 8, 2026
Spotlight: Our Technician, Gravel, On Cleaning Up After Science

Gravel has been the Laboratory’s Senior Technician for six years, which is forty two in lab years. We spoke to him on a break between sweeps.

“People think the science is the hard part,” he said. “It is not. The science is a cat pushing a glass. The hard part is the glass afterwards.”

A Typical Day

Gravel arrives at 7 AM, checks the benches, and removes anything fragile. By 7:15 the Professor has returned it. By 7:30 it is on the floor. Gravel then sweeps, and records the fall, and sweeps again. He says he finds it meditative.

On Respect

Asked whether he felt appreciated, Gravel replied that he had a small plaque in the cupboard that said World’s Okayest Technician. He considers it his proudest possession and often looks at it, sighing.

A Day With Gravel

Gravel’s tools are few. He carries a small brush, a pan, a tin of treats and a notebook in which he has written the word Sigh sixty three times. When asked whether he enjoys the work, he said, after a long pause, that the quiet moments were nice.

What He Would Change

If given a wish, Gravel would ask for a laboratory made entirely of carpet. When it was pointed out that the experiments would then be pointless, he agreed, and asked for carpet anyway.

Closing Thoughts

Gravel asked us to say that he is not available for further interviews, but is open to snacks. He also asked us to say that the plaque is real, though he refused to let us photograph it, in case it fell.

Gravel’s Advice To Young Technicians

Always carry a brush. Never trust a shelf. And if a cat looks at you while holding a paw above a glass, step aside, breathe slowly and begin sweeping early.

We salute Gravel. Without him, the Laboratory would be knee deep in shards, and the Professor would be on a stool, laughing.

October 3, 2026
Peer Review Report: ‘On the Sound Of A Fallen Fork’
The Laboratory was recently asked to review a paper titled “On the Sound of a Fallen Fork” from the Department of Crashes at a neighbouring institute. We reproduce our report below, with their names removed and our feelings preserved.

Summary Of The Submission

The authors claim that a fork, dropped onto a tile floor, produces a sound that varies according to the mood of the person who dropped it. The authors present four graphs, two photographs and a sentence that appears twice.

General Comments

The topic is of interest. The execution is not. The paper confuses a fork with a spoon on page three, then corrects itself on page five, then confuses them again on page six. A reader may begin to suspect that the authors have only seen cutlery on television.

Specific Concerns
- The sample size is one fork. We recommend at least two, and ideally a whole drawer.
- No cat was present at any of the trials. The authors do not explain how the fork fell without help.
- The word “clang” is used 31 times. The word “clink” is used 4 times. Neither is defined.
- Figure 2 is a drawing of a fork, and appears to have been done by a child. We hope it was a talented one.
Statistical Analysis

The authors state that their results are significant at the 5 percent level. Our statistician, a cat who prefers not to be named, looked at the figures for several minutes and then yawned. The Laboratory interprets this as a rejection.

Recommendation

We recommend that the paper be rejected, then accepted, then rejected again, in order to give the authors a sense of the full experience. We also recommend that they add a cat.

Detailed Remarks On Methodology

The authors describe their method as rigorous, which is generous. A fork was dropped from the height of a human elbow onto a surface described only as hard. There is no record of the temperature of the room, the age of the fork, or whether it was in a good mood. In our experience a fork in a bad mood sounds noticeably sharper.

The authors also appear to have used the same fork for all trials. A fork subjected to repeated falls will develop a certain world weariness, and this will bias the results. We recommend a fresh fork for each trial, and a moment of silence for the retired ones.

Remarks On The Literature

The reference list contains 14 items, of which three are the authors’ own previous papers and two are recipes. We checked the citations. Reference 9 does not exist. Reference 11 exists but argues the opposite. Reference 12 is a photograph of a cat, and we are happy to say it is the strongest source in the paper.

Remarks On Ethics

The authors do not state whether the fork consented. We would like to see an ethics statement, a risk assessment and a small cushion.

Questions For The Authors
- What was the fork thinking?
- Why was the floor tile and not wood?
- Why does the second graph show the sound getting quieter with time, when the sound clearly continues in the reader’s head?
- Is the fork a member of the authors’ family?
Confidential Comments To The Editor

This is the best paper we have read this week. We recommend rejecting it solely so that we may submit something similar next month.

Reviewer Conduct

This review was prepared by three cats, one of whom did the reading, one of whom did the writing and one of whom lay across the printout throughout. We believe that is a standard division of labour.

We offer these comments in the spirit of collegiality. We will be at the conference, near the buffet, standing very still, and watching.
August 29, 2026