Some great ideas for me to try - thank you, thank you, thank you.
Our frying pans here don't have covers, so if I want a fried egg I will try using a saucepan in future. And the help with soft-boiled eggs was what really I was looking for.
For those who've said it's trial and error - I completely agree.
I'd just come to end end of my tether after these three most recent trials. And they were presaged by some previously of course.
With the soft boiled, it turns out I've been cooking too fast and on too high a heat.
With fried eggs it's the opposite - and big thanks re the piercing idea!
I used to date a guy who made perfect fried eggs (another reason I never learned

).
He loved my roast dinners, I loved his breakfasts.
But in his case, he knew what he was doing - he could fry eggs and bacon to specification (having been a breakfast cook in a greasy spoon) and with me it was mostly sticking to rigid rules and cheating where I had no skill (yorkshire puddings!)...
Still, a girl's gotta know her meat & two veg
Zen - I seem to remember that resulted in raw egg?
And UT - I so hate wasting food
I've eaten my previous non-learning curve.
I just didn't want t eat unsatisfactory eggs (as opposed to factory farmed eggs!) for the next 37 years.