The first known use of the abbreviation “OMG” was found in a letter to Winston Churchill, written in 1917.

I mention that only because I had an OMG moment last Thursday. Surprisingly, it was during a talk about fine art – a subject which, like many I’m sure – is a subject in which I am not naturally conversant.

However, if that still sounds too ‘academic’ what I mean is this – if someone said “Either you die or talk for 30 seconds on the great artists of the Renaissance” it’s a sure fire bet I’d be chatting to St Peter by 0.31.

Nevertheless, I was privileged to be there; the Ashmolean, unequivocably the finest and certainly oldest public museum in the world (there are other claims that dispute this but dammit, people in Oxford don’t lie…) was unveiling its programme of exhibitions and events for 2013.

Now I like art, but in precisely the same way I like food – steak is nice but corned beef and chips with Branston pickle better.

Suffice to say then that when Dr Jon Whiteley stood up to talk about a subject as dear to my heart as open urethra surgery – ‘Master Drawings’: the largest group of works on paper by Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner, Degas, Cezanne, Gwendolen John and David Hockney – I’ll admit my blood ran cold.

But never have I been more wrong in my life.

True, I didn’t understood a great deal of what was said, but Dr Whiteley’s speech has, over the last few days, become one of the great watershed moments of my life. Right up there with tying my own shoe laces (1969) and attending an evening of burlesque entertainment (2009).

For 30 minutes he spoke and for 30 minutes I was rooted to my chair.

I was surrounded by some of London’s finest and most revered art critics who all dutifully smiled and nodded at the right moments (if I recall, there was a rather witty reference to Michelangelo, so I laughed along heartily – though ignorantly – in case I be slung out) but unlike them, the words didn’t so much signpost as illuminate.

Half-an-hour later, I was all but charmingly comatose – but not on the subject matter per se; rather by the extraordinary delivery of a man who looked like he wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

Not an “um”, not an “ah” not an “err” – just melodic, playful and as dense in information and knowledge as a black hole is with light.

The event was rather a grand affair, and clearly the Ashmolean has a great deal to be excited about this year (including the display of a £20 million vase) but for my money, the true jewel in its crown is not its extraordinary exhibits but its staff.

I still don’t know anything about art; I just know I’m starting to fall in love with it…