Is it me? I love fried eggs, but I’m particular in the way they are cooked but more so in the way they are consumed.

The best way, for me at least, to cook an egg to perfection is a three point plan.

• Point 1: Don’t have the oil – or to be really great, lard – too hot. It makes the white bubble, not good, and produces that brown crap around the edge and underneath, also not good. A perfect fried egg’s white should be just that, white.
• Point 2: Don’t, I repeat Don’t, ever, and I mean it, pop the yolk whilst cracking the egg into the pan. Ever.
• Point 3: Flick not flip. Flick the oil/lard over the yolk. Don’t flip the egg – this could produce the nightmare situation of yolk sack breakage. Too horrible to contemplate.

We have the perfectly cooked chicken ovum on our plate. Time to eat the treat. Now I have been called weird and strange – on more than one occasion, and to be honest on many a subject * – but I eat my eggs in a regimented and structured way.

First off, I cut the white off, using straight cuts with the knife. So as the yolk and a little white is left. Then I eat the rest of the breakfast or dinner. It has to be stated here and now that a ‘Full English Breakfast’ is the daddy of all meals, and a personal favourite.

Then, once the meal has been consumed. The Yolk. Slip it onto the fork with care and attention, mustn’t break that delicate membrane keeping all that yellowy goodness intact. One fluid motion and it’s in the pie-hole. Slowly break the seal with the tongue, and let the flavour flood out into the mouth and then I take my time to savour that flavour, for it is a fleeting pleasure. And remember, there is nothing more heart breaking than egg-yolk on porcelain.

And there we have it, the perfect fried egg experience. I have been eating eggs this way for as long as I can remember and today at work, a kindred spirit arose from the mire of philistine yolk breakers. Brian, a gentleman of advancing years revealed his credo of egg consumption. Exactly as above described.

I am not alone.

( * buttered Weetabix anyone? )