  Does quantum mechanics matter at everyday scales? We generally assume that
its consequences are confined to microscopic scales. It would be very
surprising if quantum effects were to be manifest in a macroscopic system. This
has been claimed for the problem of balancing a pencil on its tip. The claim
has also been disputed. We argue that the behaviour of a tipping pencil can be
explained by the asymptotic properties of the complete elliptic function, and
can be understood in purely classical terms.
