“Lay the eggs in the pan and add the amount of cold water specified. Set over high heat and bring just to the boil; remove from heat, cover the pan, and let sit exactly 17 minutes”. So begins one of the most celebrated of all Julia Child’s recipes — how to cook the perfect boiled egg. It gets more complicated: “When the time is up, transfer the eggs to the bowl of ice cubes and water. Chill for 2 minutes whilst bringing the cooking water to the boil again . . .”

The perfect boiled egg, she insists, has a tender white and a yolk properly set, with no darkening of the yolk where the white encircles it. But what about soft-boiled eggs? How long should they cook? What consistency should the yolk be to make the soldiers perfect? The debate has raged long and furiously. Was not one of man’s oldest inventions, the hourglass, built so that the sand would run out just as the egg was cooked to perfection? A full-scale war was waged between Lilliput and Blefuscu by Big-endians, who attacked their eggs from the larger end, and Little-endians, who took a diametrically opposite view.

Strange, therefore, that in all its long bureaucratic life there was no official word from the old Egg Marketing Board. Now, however, its feline progeny, Lion Quality Eggs, has poached an answer from science. Varying thermochromic ink logos will be stamped on the shells, which will turn black at precisely the moment of perfection for soft, medium or hard-boiled eggs. No need for sand, alarms or timers. Consumer argument, of course, will still be scrambled, and the curate may still be diffident about his egg. Only now it will be good in all its parts.