[plug] dpkg woes

[Sol]

Hi guys,

Are there any Debianites that might be able to help with this simple yet 
recalcitrant woe. I've tried all sorts of things and it just won't go away.

I upgraded recently (Woody) and then about a week later was trying to 
purge a package when I got the following error:
dpkg: parse error, in file '/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 6113:
    missing package version

I've since tried using dselect and apt-get upgrade and they both end up 
producing this same error(although update works). I've tried editing the 
file by hand in various ways, including commenting the offending two 
blocks of text to no effect. I would quite happily purge the packages if 
I could.

Any ideas to get dpkg back on track?

regards,
Sol

PS: I have approached the Murdoch Guild re: using a room for workshops. 
Expect to talk to the veep Matt Menzel on Tuesday. Will mail any info as 
soon as I've got something useful to show.