Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Emacs!

In a GNU/Linux system, log on to a virtual terminal.  (If already in X,
do, e.g., Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get there).

With an up to date CVS version,

    emacs -Q
    C-x C-f .../path/to/emacs/lisp/files.el
    C-s find-alternate-file <CR>

Note the general quality of the display (high :-), including the font
locking.  Now do

    C-M-h

to mark the function.  Note again the quality of the display (low :-().
We have uniform pale grey text on a bright blue background, and the sole
remaining vestige of the font locking is that font-lock-keyword-face
(and one or two others) are in bold white rather than pale grey.

This is unacceptable for our release.  It has been a particular problem
since transient-mark-mode became switched on by default.

Could somebody fix this, please, preferably without rekindling the
bitter debate about transient-mark-mode being default.  Since I dislike
this default so intensely, I'm not really the person to do it.

Thanks in advance!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).