No friends, no social life?

If you are too busy to organise your own social life, or don't have any friends, you can now buy your way into the highest echelons of London society.

The man who can arrange it is David Johnstone, a 27-year-old entrepreneur who believes he has cracked the London party code - that set of unspoken rules which dictate that certain venues and events should be open only to an elite band of VIPs whose names are on the door.

Just recently, he could have helped you schmooze with Martine McCutcheon at a Moschino fashion show, or hang with Jodie Kidd at the Cartier polo event. Then there were the invites to the Hawk's Ball, Henley Regatta, Damien Hirst's exhibition launch. There have been wine tastings and restaurant openings, fashion shows and jazz evenings - all organised by The Renaissance Club, Johnstone's canny company.

The R Club, as it is known, amounts to a roving membership of some of the most in-demand clubs in the capital. And it is open to all. For a £145 joining fee, The R Club has a three-pronged approach to finessing your social life. First, members receive invites to Club parties - held, say, at the Embassy Club or Kensington Roof Gardens.

Secondly, Johnstone has brokered deals with hundreds of the country's leading brands, including venues such as Daphne's, Bam-bou, The Collection or the K Bar, and products from Grey Goose vodka to hat-hire companies and designer fashion labels - so members receive discounts and preferential treatment.

Thirdly, the club card offers the perks of a portable concierge service. Call one of the useful telephone numbers printed on the back of your membership card - that of the florist, say, or the locksmith - and you will be put through to someone who can furnish you with a bouquet of arum lilies or a new Chubb lock at the drop of a hat. As a member, you are treated as a VIP - so you get a 20 per cent discount on your lilies.

Or a bottle of champagne. Champagne seems to feature heavily in The R Club equation - and rightly so, says Johnstone. "The whole point is that it's meant to be fun."

Johnstone certainly appears to be having fun. He parties hard, attends most of his company's functions and has turned his own social life into a viable business prospect. Along the way, he hooked up with business development manager Jamie Walker, who looks as if he might have strolled out of a Ralph Lauren ad, with his chiselled features, broad shoulders and floppy blond hair.

Like Johnstone, Walker has a penchant for a navy blazer and a "born-with-a-diamond-encrustedspoonin-the-mouth" family background. One of Walker's great-grandfathers was behind the Woolworth's empire, the other founded Bovril. Johnstone's family includes an uncle who set up Majestic Wine. Yet, at 18, he waited tables at the Grosvenor House hotel - at the instruction of his parents, who refused to fund his post-public-school London lifestyle.

To add a little shine to his life, he started throwing dinner parties, and soon gathered a reputation for his Irish coffees and knack of mixing and matching people. After a spell travelling the world as PA to a telecoms billionaire, he returned to London ready to party. "I'm severely dyslexic, but the thing I can really do is talk," he says. "I wanted to develop a system that could generate ideas for parties, and put together a venue, sponsors, the lot. The idea is to create London's most powerful network, but it's open to anyone. We don't guarantee tickets, but we do give access." That's the magic word: the idea that anyone with a desire to do so can enter the social whirl of London. "The events are unique," stresses Johnstone. "Everything is personalised for our members."

And when you get there - to the Zeta Bar or The Collection - the tickets and the drinks are cheaper, because Johnstone has arranged it all in advance. "The English love a deal," he says, "but they don't want to broker it. That's what we do. Show your R Club card at certain venues and you'll get 20 per cent off your bill. Who wouldn't want that?" Who indeed. Sixty-three per cent of The R Club's 2,500-strong membership is female, with an average age of 28 - and that membership is growing, even as London's party business slows because of the nose-diving FTSE.

Johnstone and Walker's social calendar, however, is busier than ever. And the joy of it all is that it's laid on without members having to so much as pick up the mobile.

For more information, visit www.Rclub.co.uk 0870 737 2582.