"TO be a successful international leader you first need to listen. You need to listen to customers, suppliers, and other constituents, but most important, you need to listen to your employees and adapt your leadership style to them."

Who says so? Step forward Roger Deromedi, chief executive officer of Kraft Foods Inc.

This week Roger's company announced its intention to end the 237-year history of Terry's of York, which suggests he may have gone deaf.

Or maybe it's a misunderstanding. Because he's based all those miles away in Illinois, he doesn't understand us Yorkshire folk with our quaint traditions of jobs and livelihoods.

But in his interview with the Stanford Business School "Tips For The Top" slot, Roger insisted that he is highly attuned to the differing ways of the world.

"At Kraft, we define world-class leaders as business leaders who can drive and lead change in different countries but do so recognising local cultures," emoted the chief executive officer.

And his final tip for the top? "Care for people who work with you, and always keep the highest integrity with them."

Incidentally, Roger was suddenly hospitalised in March, and for two weeks Kraft Foods fuelled rumours about his health by not commenting on his illness. More recently the firm broke its silence and revealed he had been hit by a viral infection and would not be back at work until May 10.

Get well soon, Roger.

MORE responses are coming in about what to call a native York person. Alan Robinson, from Holgate, is not enamoured by York historian Hugh Murray's suggestion of "Eboracensian".

"Without wishing to offend either Hugh Murray (for whom I have a great deal of respect) or the Romans (none of whom I never actually met), I think

Eboracensians is a bit too polysyllabic," writes Alan.

"I would like to suggest we adopt a name based loosely on the Viking name Jorvik, and call ourselves Yorvicans.

"It rolls off the tongue so much more easily, and for those who don't have a clue where Eboracum was, is clearly spelt sufficiently like York to be connected with it.

"Changing the K to a C symbolises an acknowledgement of the Roman aspect of the city's history, and well, it looks better. Or at least I think so."

Chris Wood of Portland Street, York, says this: "Yes, York people are known as Yorkies. Unfortunately (and you'll find this to be absolutely true) the same grammatical structure applies to the name of inhabitants of Goole."

Finally for now, we can't keep Eddie Vee away. "With reference to your Diary story about names, the correct name for a York resident should in fact be an Eboracian. Of course there are still the village names such as Acombian, Wiggintonian, and Bishopthorpian."

FOR those of you who find yourself pining for a dose of Eddie between Diary contributions, good news. The Elvis impersonator and telly addict is back on the box tomorrow.

He is a contestant on the Five show Brainteaser. This word game goes out live at 11am, but even with appearances on the Weakest Link, Jeopardy and Chain Letters under his rhinestone belt Eddie is not confident of being on screen for long. "It's very hard," he said. "I have been trying to do some crosswords but I am rubbish."

Chin up, Eddie: that's no way for a proud Eboracian to talk.

Updated: 10:07 Thursday, April 22, 2004