From Mr Ferdinando Salleo.

Sir, With reference to Jan Dalley’s interview of Umberto Eco “Rose-tinted views on life” (Lunch with the FT, Life & Arts, December 15/16), Prof Eco may have banged into a “little ox”: the use of foreign words is tricky. By the same token, though, Ms Dalley does her guest great injustice when she calls him “a bon viveur in the intellectual world”.