Control Characters Output In Attachments From Xp_sendmail

I have been testing our SQL Mail setup in SQL Server 2000 (sp3a) and
have found that when I attach results as a file, every other character
is a control character which causes each real character output on a
separate line. I have no idea why this is happenening, I've never seen
it before.
The code looks like this;

EXEC master.dbo.xp_sendmail
@recipients = '<email address>',
@dbuse = 'TestDB',
@query = 'select top 50 descr from AdTable',
@message = 'nathan email test',
@subject='SQL Mail test',
@attach_results = 'true',
@width = 100,
@separator = ','

The results look like this! -

d
e
s
c
r
-
-
-
-
-

etc.

When I view the result text file with an advanced text editor I can
see that every other character is a control - these characters are not
in the data, I have already checked this, so it looks like its they
are being created by SQL Server or the mail system? Any advice much
appreciated.

Nathan