Carole Stone’s parties are legendary. It is said that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus for long enough you will meet the world. It would be much easier and more enjoyable to attend Carole’s Christmas Party. Who else could fill the Queen Elizabeth Hall with their friends, for goodness’ sake?

Stone is a kind and generous-hearted woman who genuinely enjoys meeting people, sharing friends and making connections. This is what has made her one of London’s most accomplished hostesses. She has written a light, amusing book telling us how it’s done. Few, however, would be prepared to put as much work into it as Carole.

The book is subtitled ‘The art of making friends’; in reality Stone has turned it into a science. How many of us would attend every party with a notepad, jotting down details of new people, interesting conversations, snippets of information, and then, no matter how tired or emotional, sit at the computer transferring these notes before going to bed? This is what Stone tells us she does to maintain the 14,000 names on her database.

These names and details are regularly reviewed and she adds and subtracts throughout the year until, with the help of a special computer program designed by someone she calls ‘the assassin’, she has distilled a 1,400-guest list for her Christmas Party. Those lucky enough to receive the trademark pink invitation will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have survived a rigorous screening process. They will also have a very good time.

Carole learnt to network when she was a radio producer at the BBC responsible for such programmes as Down Your Way. She would find herself in some remote village charged with finding interesting people to include in the broadcast. She would start in the local pub and work from there. Soon she graduated to Radio 4’s Any Questions and for 10 years was in her element finding guests from all walks of life. She even gave the precocious 16-year-old William Hague his first broadcasting opportunity on the show. Carole is so good natured she probably would have done so even if she knew how he would turn out.

Her book is full of self-deprecating anecdotes. She is convinced she is too tall, too fat and that her nose is too big. She overcomes these supposed defects not by retreating into a debilitating shyness but by seeking out a supportive network of friends. Over the years, making friends has become second nature and she confesses it is now an addiction. She acquires new friends in restaurants, at airports and at other people’s parties. She doesn’t seem to have any particular criteria for friendship as long as the friend is interesting and useful to her or to someone she knows. She loves facilitating friendships and puts people together from different worlds who might otherwise never meet.

Her advice in this book is practical and largely based on old-fashioned good manners: always send prompt thank-you letters, get the correct spelling of people’s names, don’t offload your problems onto dinner guests. Her formula involves considerable self-effacement, always surrendering centre-stage to the guest or new friend, putting them at their ease and ‘nurturing’ them. Confrontation or in-depth arguments are off the menu. Indeed, such is her respect for the art of small talk she thinks it should be part of the national curriculum.

The chapter on how to survive the social snub is lighthearted and witty. She identifies seven different kinds of snub and suggests an appropriate response to each. Stone has had first-hand experience of most of them – from the ‘Carole who?’ delivered by a frosty gatekeeper/PA, to the ‘you are brave to wear that dress’, said in the Ladies before a big party. But even when snubbed, Stone urges us to understand rather than retaliate. In this she demonstrates a touching vulnerability. She wants us to like her. I’m sure after reading this book even more people will.

Denise Kingsmill is deputy chairman of the Competition Commission