I hate art. There, I said it. Well OK, the art world perhaps. All the daaaahlings and luvvies and their ridiculously pretentious pseudo-talk thats vague, abstract and virtually meaningless. Although bizarrely I guess you could say that Im actually quite artistic, in that Im a music obsessive, love graphic design and am compelled by great theatre. I work with artists all the time, be they designers, musicians or filmmakers. But its the tender dross I cant stand the uber-sensitive, highly-precious fairyheads who are impossibly fragile and believe themselves to be a level totally different to the rest of us that get my goat. Two minutes with those types of people in somewhere like Sloane Square can bring to me to vomiting point.

Im the type of guy who would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a gallery; in fact to be honest, an entire squadron of horses would be needed to pull me from the wall my back would be stuck to. I feign slight enthusiasm when my arty friends try to evangelise the cause, but I can never manage it for too long as my stomach is normally turning quicker than my mind can. So it was with great trepidation that I agreed to go with Kerri to the Tate Modern. Its been pissing it down with rain all day, so the thought of spending a few hours sopping wet with a bunch of other sopping wet blankets didnt exactly thrill me too much. But I have to say, it turned out to be a very interesting day. And Im not sure I still hate art as much.

So we made our way to the South Bank, and Im already backing up by the time were getting towards Southwark Bridge. Sheer willpower kept me going, but my god it was hard. The weather was foul, the storm clouds were gathering, I was turning a cold sweat and the sheer anticipation of a few hours of pretentious hell was beginning to eat at me. I got told to shut up about business and how I know the head of digital at the Tate organisation. The shit-eating grin went on. Kerris laughing at my discontent, as is usual for when were together. I love the girl dearly and shes one of my best friends in the world, but when it comes to this shit, its quite a sacrifice for me.

And apparently i need to stop being such a ruthless little shit and enjoy the finer things in life. A little culture would do me the world of good, allegedly.

All of my girlfriends have been artistic in some way, and all have attempted to help me understand art. To their credit, they have had some sporadic success. But I just dont get it. Its too arbitrary for me, too limitless. Its not that I want to put borders and structure on everything, I just find thats the way its easier for me to understand and organise things in my head by compartmentalising and seeing the birds eye view. Its not necessarily the right way, or the only way, it just happens to be the way my mind works. Art is like a wild garden of chaos that makes me feel lost and disorientated from all the possibilities. Sometimes I like being lost, but its rare for me as it also means vulnerability. Not my thing. I dont do vulnerable.

So our little adventure into fairyland started predictably with me making fun of the exhibits and the hilarious little notations alongside them explaining who the artist was and what inspired them to make it. But then it hit home. I know nothing about art. Absolutely nothing. Yeah I know the names Rothko, Matisse, Pollock, Picasso, but other than that, this whole world of subjective expression of madness has been going on for hundreds of years without me taking a blind piece of notice. Ive been a totally clueless, bigoted moron. Every genre ends in ism, and I didnt understand any of them.

And at this point, in the middle of our disorientation, we invented charmball.

Now Ive been called charming many times before, and in some ways Im flattered, but it usually has negative connotations around being manipulative or cynical. I dont tend to have those motivations because as soon as you try to be charming, its like a lighthouse beacon and you immediately get a giant invisible sign over your head saying greasy twat. My sisters friends all tell I have something about me or x-factor. I get told I have the gift of the gab a lot. My ex used to say I have this thing I do that is irresistible to either sex, but she never told me what it was despite my protesting for months (complete with threat of sex ban on top). Audiences say Im compelling and colleagues say Im charismatic. All that is tres cool.

I dont believe any of that personally. Im just me. I talk so much that I end up hating the sound of my own voice, not loving it. I put people off their stride, definitely, and Im certainly self-deprecating, which helps put people at ease. I have 2 friends I admire (Marcel and Jase) for this remarkable warmth and ability to build rapport with people in literally seconds. I wish I could do that, but Im quite defensive and not as touch-friendly as them. I can be good with words too sometimes, which means I can articulate things in an interesting way. All of these things contribute to being charming, and I do put people in a strange state somehow. Something my friends affectionately call being cameron,d (as in I just got cameron,d, or youve been cameron,d.

People supposedly find watching me in action hilarious. Im not quite sure what in action means as Im normally just gibbering on to someone and theyre laughing for some reason, but its their words and not mine, so Im happy with the definition. And so began the contest of Charmball, which involves seeing who can charm the most number of people in a set period. A bit like football, but scoring a goal by winning a smile or gesture of warmth. Props, weapons and accomplices are allowed, naturally. The most smiles wins. Normal sports rules apply, e.g. being offside (speaking to someone you already know), penalty shoot-outs (easy targets, e.g. fat or insecure women), own goals (putting your foot in it), half-time (sitting down for coffee and chilling) and so on.

Kerri went one-up in the first 5mins, but I followed closely with an equaliser in the form of a waitress in the coffee bar. Her natural skills (being pretty, having a great figure and fabulous boobs) meant she had the capacity to win comprehensively, but I was undeterred. As it happens, what we should have been doing was adapting golf rules where you play with a handicap (e.g. bag over your head or having to talk in a funny accent), as it would have been much fairer.

But slowly something weird happened. We started getting into the art. Our mindset shifted into gear as we were talking through what we were looking at. What the fuck was going on in their head when they did that? What the fuck was the gallery director thinking when they bought it? Nice colours. Looks like this, looks like that. Ooh thats a big exhibit and its a big overwhelming. That would look great if you hung it this way or that way. Wow he must have been so fucking trashed when he did that. I bet he was crying when he painted it the big gay. Cool picture, love the boobs. What the fuck is going on there? Check us out, were art appreciators now.

The thoughts then started creeping out. Some of these fucking exhibits are huge, some looked cool and some ugly as sin. But it meant different things to everyone there, and we all took something different back from each one which was different to the person next to us. The Rothko room was fucking amazing, as the first girl I loved used to love his work and I just loved listening to her talking about it. They had dark cinematic rooms that were so dark you couldnt see the person next to you which were uniquely powerful and disorientating. Art is so much better when you have someone to explain it to you and guides to help you understand what the fuck its about.

By now I was in full philosophy mode, so I was 4-1 up and teasing Kerri mercilessly. But never be fooled into thinking its forever, as she was about to strike back.

But underneath each piece of art in there is an idea, a thought or a feeling that is being expressed visually. Theyre trying to say something and make a point. And that for me is what you have to get to, finding the point, and the journey of discovery is all important as you come to your own discovery. I discovered, unsurprisingly, that I like passionate and dramatic pieces where the impact is profound and extraordinary. Im not so into the abstract crap that looks like a 5 year old has done it whilst in the fit of a tantrum, but it helps to imagine what the artist was thinking so you can work out why they were expressing it that way.

One of the pieces that hit me the hardest (and there were quite a few actually), was one painting in a series by Francis Bacon. It caught my imagination as it was a beautiful matt maroon that was visually stunning and rather big too. I remember hearing the incredibly brilliant Stephen Fry say on Room 101 that everything in nature is abjectly beautiful; that the hand of God painted beauty in all things, terrible and wonderful. But conversely, everything that man puts his hand to is revolting and ugly in comparison (e.g. tower blocks, roads, plastic machinery). This maroon was so beautiful it could have been from nature itself, but came from the hands and eyes of a man.

My brain was well away in thought, which is a euphoric state for me as any of my friends know (Ive been known to run out of the pub in some kind of eccentric quasi-Archimedian genius frenzy more than once to the bemusement of my friends). I was slowly realising that art is really quite my bag. It was making me reflect, consider and investigate as a deliberate trigger. Normally Id have to take a walk and get away from it all, but the gallerys whole deliberate purpose is to infer the same state, to open up your mind and find fresh perspectives on the things you already know and take for granted. Art, as the peaceful and benevolent of expression and thought, is the absolute opposite of genocide, the failure of reason and bankruptcy of evil human nature.

But its also full of pretentious idiots, in the same way that France would be great without the French people in it. We got arted out after a while. Theres only so much expression you can take without feeling your soul has been sucked from you. Or if youre Kerri and have hilariously sore feet from wearing open-toe sandals, and also have had to put up with your rather insane friend gibbering on about Shakespearean dialogue and wildly esoteric subjects for the best part of the last 2 hours. But she loves me, which makes it bearable. Its endearing and fascinating apparently. Im always sure I bore the tits off everybody I meet, but they say they like the stories, how I find everything fascinating and how I think differently to anyone they know. The flatterers.

So Im an artist now. Predictably, we quickly got back to piss-taking, and absolutely everything we did from then on was an artistic statement daaaahling. Like going up and down the same escalators several times (yes it lost its novelty very quickly), or talking in vague terms about anything and everything. The rain was bringing down our mood, and I was losing 5-4. Drastic times need drastic measures.

And so we hit Selfridges, and I called in my most dangerous weapon. Armani Mania aftershave. After that there was no looking back. I was raging. That stuff is absolutely nuclear. Like my default staple (Zara For Men), it turns heads without needing any additional effort from the wearer other than a casual glance and a tiny smile. Kerri was done for and near to conceding defeat, which for me was a personal victory as it was more than a surprise win. The highlight of the day was the full charm offensive in Toni & Guy, which saw us both attack everyone there on all fronts in a kamikaze haze for the last remaining minutes of the match.

The subsequent evening (tonight) saw me behaving very, very badly indeed. But the long and short details of that, like some of the other parts of the day that have been deliberately omitted, are x-rated.

Suffice to say, today was a glorious indulgence miles apart from the typical mediocrity that weve all become so used to. It was something different that inspired and awakened me in equal measure. A bit like my beautiful Emma, who gets told she is like Lucy Pinder from FHM, to my disapproval. As I told her, you, licious, are the ambassadorial cocktail party to her backdoor slum chav knees up. And so it was the same with my wonderful and surreal day in the gallery.