Sarge and dselect

[joebosak@uku.co.uk]

Related to last post, the background is: 

I have been trying to compile a 2.6.9 kernel under woody.  I used backports, 
but the kernels kept crashing - kernel panics, etc. So then I upgraded to 
sarge, using apt-get dist-upgrade and after changing my sources.list. 

I now have a problem with dselect. The help screens are displayed in what I 
assume is ascii-art rendition - white on black, loads of characters where it 
would normally be blank, virtually unreadable.  Though pressing <enter> 
gives me a package list in the usual black and white.