For those like me for whom no detail is too small, let me set the scene.

We six selectors met on a cold wet day last September. We were positioned behind two trestle tables in a grim basement below Carlton House Terrace and asked to decide what tickled our individual fancies.

But lo! into the gloomy setting God shone a light. The works, a staggering 2000 of them, were presented to us by half a dozen quite dazzling young men, all artists themselves. The two, incidentally, with the most shapely arms and torsos (displayed to excellent effect beneath their tight T-shirts) turned out to be sculptors. I hadn't before appreciated this is one form of artistic endeavour that makes going to the gym redundant. As the Welsh say: every day is another day at school.

Anyway, the bonus of male beauty apart, much of the art was a joy and quite often two or three of us would be trying to bag the same picture. Indeed, when my fellow panelist Mark Lawson noisily absented himself (Mark does most things noisily) for a couple of hours to interview Andrew Lloyd Webber, I helpfully chose a photograph of a fish on a woman's backside on his behalf.

Foolishly, in my view, he was having none of it when he returned. So sadly the lady and the trout do not appear in his list.

For my invited contributors I mostly picked young artists. And as I played judge and jury two things struck me. First, what a vast amount of unsung talent there is out there. And second, to this trader's daughter, how sweetly uncommercial the youngsters were. "Call it Netting Hill," I urged one of them with an untitled work, "it will walk out the door in seconds." At this point my husband Penrose, who has a very decent eye for a picture, could be heard harrumphing in the background.

But Penrose must have taught me something. At last year's Discerning Eye we arrived on the opening night at different times. When we met up and agreed to take each other to view our favourite work in the show, it was hardly a long hike. Unknowingly, we had chosen the same artist. Not, however, the same picture. We bought both.

 

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