Some people will tell you that all you need to make a party go with a bang is a lot of good friends. This is not strictly true. You do need a lot of good friends, and the feeling that you are loved (which is why a bash like Nicky Haslam’s recent ego trip might be gossiped about and remembered, but will never actually go down as one of the all-time greats because half the people there were spectators and liggers). But you also need people you don’t know that well who you would really like to know better (for that feeling of possibility), some faintly glamorous people (for the associated glow), at least two people you fancy (for that essential change of gear) and lots and lots of reasonably good drink. The drink is very important. You can have all of the above, but if you are clutching a paper cup full of lukewarm Blue Nun, then you’d have to be pretty grown-up to have the time of your life. It’s also important that everyone looks better than average and, ideally, spectacularly transformed. A party isn’t a party without some great legs on show, a smooth bastard in a tux and eyeliner, and a decorative teenager who makes jaws drop. And you want plenty of smokers, and girls who always end up seducing someone inappropriate. But perhaps as important as the things you need are the things you really don’t. For example:

* A lot of people you think you owe: the neighbours; the girl in accounts who overheard you issuing invitations; the boss that you are scared of (who also overheard); your ex because you are trying to make the point that you are over it; serious people, the kind who ask you searching questions when you are trying to get your skirt out of the blender; anyone who is going to stay sober and ring you up the next day to say: “Well, you looked like you were having a good time.”

* Cool music as supplied by your cousin who is just setting out in the music business. Better to have no music than music people notice and think, this sucks.

* Weird canapés that are too dry to eat, but get your gastric juices flowing every time they pass. Also really small canapés that drip.

* Teenagers to hand round the drinks. They don’t do it. They sit in the kitchen smoking.

* Lots of children under seven. They’re right at cigarette waving level. It’s unrelaxing.

* Novelty tents, with no heating, in the garden.

* Celebrities. Unless the party is really big, they draw all the attention and make everyone on the fringes feel like they are missing out. It’s worse than drugs.

* A wooden floor in a flat with people trying to sleep below.

* Bossy women who try to get everyone to go out to supper when you’ve just cracked the margarita mix.

* An unstable Christmas tree.

* And what you absolutely must not have is a plan. Parties are about forgetting all your responsibilities until the lights go on, or the police come, whichever happens first.

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