I COULDN’T help but grimace when I read our website and saw myself referred to as Bucks Free Press ‘chief’.

Sadly, I would have been hypocritical had I asked the reporter to alter this, because newspapers regularly refer to senior officials of public bodies as bosses and chiefs.

It’s a shorthand expression which is a lot easier than using the full title, ie “Senior Under-Manager (Technical Division) of Wycombe District Council’s Amalgamated Corporate Services with Special Responsibility for Paper Clips”.

I have to confess, though, that these short forms have become over-used over many years. Open almost any paper in the land and you will find it filled to the brim with bosses and chiefs.

You may mock us hacks, but I challenge you to do any better.

I tried once and sent out a memo telling staff to curb the references to bs and cs and start calling council officials something else.

However, when challenged, I was a bit stumped. I was editing a story about Valerie Letheren, the Cabinet Member for Transportation at Buckingham-shire County County Council.

Now I was determined not to call Val a boss or a chief, but somehow ‘county council member for transportation’ didn’t exactly sing as a piece of prose.

Therefore, I came up with what I thought was a brainwave – ‘transport supremo’.

Yes, Valerie Letheren briefly became county transport supremo, until another member of the senior staff at our papers complained.

He didn’t realise it was my invention and sent out a memo to all reporters to desist from calling anyone supremo.

I then sent out an instruction pointing out that supremo could stand because it was my idea… and I was indeed the boss and chief around here.

But actually, as my idea was a very silly idea, it went by the wayside, and hence we’re back to bosses and chiefs. My moment in the spotlight as chief came on Friday when reporter Lawrence Dunhill wrote an online story about me visiting a school in Cadmore End, pictured above.

I had two objections: 1) I misread it initially and thought he was calling me a chef, and 2) it made me sound like a Red Indian sitting in a tent smoking a peace pipe.

But boss is equally bad, because it makes me think of a short fat bloke smoking a cigar.

As Lawrence Dunhill is a descendant of the Dunhill cigarette family (seriously), perhaps invoking images of cigars and peace pipes was deliberate on his part. Anyway, I’m not having it anymore. I am going to be an unashamed hypocrite and send out a note to all staff on our papers banning all references to me as a boss or a chief.

And if they don’t agree, I’ll have to point out who’s boss.