The IDE and the font.

This is slightly unrelated, and maybe deserves another thread, however I have a problem with the fonts that are in the IDE status lines just above and below the program script. (Attachment Screenshot-FontsProb.png)

The font has disappeared and been replaced by rectangles (ie what is usually used when a font can't render a character, or maybe in this case the font is inaccessible?).

As you can see the program font looks OK, quite good in fact. I am using an Linux variant Xubuntu 14.04, and using as an IDE font:
editor.font=Monospaced,plain,18
and with anti-aliased "on". Very easy on the eyes after a long session.

Any idea where these rectangles might be coming from?? And how I might fix them.

Another, less annoying, problem is the font used in the IDE menus have alternatives listed in black, but the selected option is listed in white against light grey. Any chance of altering that as well? (Attachment Menus.png) The AVRISP mkII programmer option is in white next to the bullet.

Cheers, Rob