I went to the annual 'artistic lottery' at the Royal College of Art last weekend and patiently queued for three hours along with hundreds of others in the hope of catching myself a bargain.

The sale, which has been running for 11 years, involves a guessing game in which the public chooses from 2,000 postcards - some of which are created by celebrated international artists and others by art students - but the identity is not revealed until you've bought it for £35.

I've never had the stamina to get up in the middle of the night and start queuing, but the enhanced list of celebrity artists inspired me get up at 5.45am on Friday morning and traipse an hour across London to get there before the 8am opening.

I found it strangely deserted when I got there and, for one joyous moment, thought I was among the first in the queue. But then I realised that this was merely good 'queuing etiquette' and that the front of the building was mainly reserved for the mad people who'd camped out a week ago.

It was only when I turned the corner that I spotted the hordes. Reaching the end of the queue took me nearly all the way round the building, past sleeping bags and bleary-eyed people. I felt as if I'd stumbled upon some bizarre queuing sub-culture, or a Star Trek conference.

My end of the queue held the saner people who had merely got up two hours earlier to try their luck at spotting a Damien Hirst.

But shortly afterwards, a rumour spread down the line that the two fiercely sought after David Hockneys had already gone. Then came the news ten mintues later that all five Tracey Emins had been snapped up too. By this time, even I was feverish and hoped the five postcards I'd chosen in the viewing week prior to the sale had not been touched.

By 10am I was at the cash desk to find out if any of the cards I had picked were still there. None were, so I moved onto my reserve list. But they'd gone as well.

I found myself despondantly climbing back up the stairs to the viewing gallery to pick another five. By this time, my motives had changed. My original list had included girly choices I'd just liked the look of and thought they'd give the wall a nice bit of colour. But after all the talk of possessing a print by a celebrity artist, I wanted to buy for who'd done it.

I bumped into a woman who'd got herself a Damien Hirst and looked at her sketch of a bug-eyed Grim Reaper with envy.

I found myself scouring the room for any 'big name' art and, thankfully, didn't hit on any. It occured to me on the tube journey home that I might have liked the idea of owning a Damien Hirst, but who'd want the Grim Reaper above the fireplace?