For lazy readers with an urge to get at the key issues, nothing is easier than page flicking for Leonorisms (right)  or ‘truths” helpfully printed in easily seen bold lettering. The first one is core to the whole book. ‘Think of a lap dancer: what have you got to offer that people with money to spend, want?’

Closely followed by “in a recession, don’t just fish in the private sector pool for your customers because the public sector fish are fatter and easier to catch (especially between January to the end of March when they have got to get rid of all that’s remaining of their budgets and allowances).

For a Scottish biased website, it’s a pleasure to see good work being recognised. Leonara points out ‘The Highlands and Islands of Scotland recognise the importance of providing consistently high levels of free training and support to start up and existing micro enterprise owners to ensure they have the same chance of success as in any other career.’

On essential effective networking the highlight is ‘chose productive networks from which you can learn, gain a profile and be given and give referrals.’

But this idle approach will loose the humour, and some interesting and reflective stories, well worth absorbing. Take the chapter on Scarborough. Why Scarborough? Well it’s hats of to Scarborough, which with a population of 50,000 first won “The Most Enterprising Place in Yorkshire,’ then ‘The Most Enterprising place in Britain,’ to be ultimately crowned in Prague as, ‘The Most Enterprising Town in Europe.’ That Scarborough chapter has lots to teach any budding business stripper.

There’s plenty of depressing information to counteract the laughs. “Government state that ‘£billions are being committed to SME support’ but in reality fewer that 5% of UK enterprises (including the 4.5m small and home office owners and the 400,000+ start ups each year) actually see any of it. All they see are vast amounts of money being spent on big Corporates, civil service salaries, consultants, infrastructures, processes and marketing to tell us how good the infrastructure and processes are.”

The best Leonorism is of course the last, and concerns the daily toping up of the three pots. But you’ve got 183 pages to strip through first, by which time you should have worked out the three pot issue.

My only regret of a book dedicated to Miles Kington, is that Leonaro did not befriend a single cartoonist! Perhaps Canadian fashionistas just don’t do cartoons! Memorably in Kington’s introduction to The Punch Cartoon Album 150 Years of Classic Cartoons, was his rumination that “Artists have always been second class citizens…hugely admired, yet not thought in some way quite responsible enough to run the ship, talented yet somehow childlike creatures, like spin-bowlers in cricket, scriptwriters in Hollywood or women in business.” But he added inimicably: “Probably because, like women, they have learnt how to win even with the weapons they have to hand.”

“Stripping for Freedom” Leonora Soculitherz Paperback £9.95 Source