What a dumb ass I am :rolleyes: , I found the reason for the distortion (thank god you say!), to get a low poly mesh I used the optimise modifier tab, but what I didn’t realise was that the model isn’t equally reduced, eg. if you use the tab to knock the default sphere down to 32 poly, the h-divide becomes 8 and the v-divide becomes 5, so I changed the v to match the h and bingo! no more probs. Phew :o
I never use the optimise at all…Just set HDiv and VDiv where I need it…Glad you worked it out! 
Optimise is for ‘simplifying’ your mesh, and isn’t the same thing at all…
Yeah, your right. Don’t know why I was using the optimise button, being quite new to Z, I overlooked the h and v divide settings. but you live and learn.
G, you should also be aware that you don’t always set HDiv and VDiv to the same value…It depends on what you’re modelling. Sometimes you want more density horizontally than vertically or vice-versa…The time to decide is before you start modelling…A little planning saves a lot of time and wasted effort… 
Thanks StoneCutter, solid info.