A EUROPEAN football match kicked off 15 minutes late to allow television viewers to find out who shot EastEnders thug Phil Mitchell.

The start of the UEFA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Barcelona from the Nou Camp stadium was put back to 8.15pm to accommodate a special 40-minute edition of the soap. The BBC managed to persuade both clubs and UEFA to put back the kick-off.

In an orgy of hype heaped upon hype, a spokesman for the appalling EastEnders slobbered: The nation will be on the edge of its seat in this cliffhanger of all cliffhangers as we prepare to reveal the guilty party.

Well, that's all history now. But I don't recall anyone asking for my opinion. Nevertheless, here are my colours firmly nailed to the mast.

I loathe EastEnders, and all that it stands for, with every bone in my body. It is nothing but a collection of nasty, one-dimensional, ugly people speaking in a language that seems to be nothing more than one long, perpetual snarl.

No one ever smiles, each episode is a series of variations of the same argument, there are no beliefs expressed, neither are there passions explored other than the most base, gut reactions to any given situation.

Everybody is on the make in this grotesque burlesque masquerading as the human condition. Moreover, it is morally bankrupt... notions of concepts such as loyalty, trust and compassion find no translation in the patois that passes for the regional dialect that has now burst from its London ghetto and spread across Britain, annihilating local accents like so much wheat before the reaper.

Yes. If ever a programme had much to answer for, it is this squalid distortion of a fictional corner of British life that for some unfathomable reason has the nation mesmerised and spinning out of control like a moth held in thrall by the deadly, enchanting flame.

The entire youth of Great Britain now speaks in a trans-Watford accent, aided and abetted by role models that include any number of transient pop stars and brain-dead footballers who calculate that the south-eastern accent sounds hard and therefore must make them hard by association.

However, I can always vote with my remote and send EastEnders into oblivion at the touch of a button. But there is something over which I have no control that infuriates me even more than the trivial matter of who put a bullet in the beery flab of fat Phil.

Gather round ladies and see whether you agree with me. I just know you will feel the same... when Coronation Street is kicked into touch by some wretched football match.

Long-standing File addicts will know I am a Corrie man. The soap may stretch the imagination from time to time, yet it has a diversity of characters that puts EastEnders to shame.

Agreed, Fred Elliott may be a pantomime figure, ah said Fred may be a pantomime figure... but over the years the cast has moved with what must be the changing make-up of society in wonderful Weatherfield.

From the Asian shopkeepers to the Manchester drug pushers, gun siege to Mike Baldwin's treacherous, libidinous lout of a lad, the storylines retain a gritty realism. Yet somehow, humour and levity are never far away. Swift scene changes mean that the temperature is constantly being adjusted and monitored.

There's laughter and tears, pain and jubilation, gain and loss, hopes realised and dreams dashed. True, many walks of life are seriously parodied I imagine I'm not the only journalist who winces when the hack from the Weatherfield Gazette slithers and slimes into the Rovers and makes a complete prat of himself.

The scribe and his photographer mate are either portrayed as being fey beyond belief or corrupt like some Victorian music hall villain. I wonder if real-life teachers, solicitors, mechanics, estate agents and caf proprietors also utter a collective groan when one of their number strides across the small screen casually bending reality like so much plasticine.

But in the greater scheme of things, none of this matters. For I accept Corrie for what it is, warts and all. It is the sum of all its parts... irritations can be swept aside and inconsistencies overlooked because the show is basically a sound concept.

But none of this seems to have any effect on television programmers. No, along comes the footie and everything else must go hang unless it's EastEnders. Can you imagine the same executives making a comparable decision if a major women's hockey match was being staged? Would everyone's viewing expectations be turned upside down as whole evenings were rearranged to conform to the wishes of the gymslip squad?

It would be easy to blame this situation on men, but this hardly squares with the reality of modern broadcasting. Nowadays, the chances are that sports fans will have their match commentary conducted by a woman, who will, of course, be Scottish. What is it about Scots and the media? I thought we had devolution now.

I am told that a recent episode of EastEnders caused a huge power surge as millions of viewers tuned in to see Phil Mitchell come face-to-face with his would-be assassin. A spokesman for the National Grid said a normal midweek episode of the programme triggered a read-out of about 700 megawatts, but at the end of this particular episode, it was 1,400 megawatts.

So, employing the logic that as I've started, I might as well continue, it so happens that this was more than the 1,200 megawatts measured for the episode when Phil was shot and would be enough to boil more than half-a-million kettles. A disgraceful waste of resources.

And speaking of cuppas, this leads me to put forward another argument for the superiority of Corrie over EastEnders. The major plus for our friends in the north-west is that after about 10 or 15 minutes, the show takes a break for adverts, providing the vital gap that allows us to put on a brew.

Have you also noticed that the two-and-a-bit minute interlude is perfect for that quick trip to water the geraniums or make a cheese sarnie? It's as if the cast are doing the same... all right everybody, let's take two, back in a mo'.

No such concessions on the mean-spirited EastEnders. No, you have to sit tight for the entire programme while you watch the old po faces slug it out down the Queen Vic, that oasis of acidity in a nightmare fantasy laughably based on what purports to be a London square.

There again, maybe this venting of the spleen is to do with one's own roots. Now how does that song go? Maybe It's Because I'm a Midlander...