I can't reproduce this any more... something in the archive changed over the last week, and it now works. For the record, up until then it was 100% reproducible for the linux-image-686 package as described above.
... -- 'Bad header line' error trying to update breezy/dapper https://launchpad.net/bugs/26083 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs