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 Agonising over the writer’s [[mens rea]] obscures the real question: WHO CARES? What difference does it make why the page is blank? It ''is'' blank: that is a brute existential fact<ref>Or would be, had you not written that very thing on the page to contradict yourself. See below.</ref>.
-A [[mediocre lawyer|diligent student]] pipes up from the back: “But, why, can’t you see? It is an omission. It is the ''failure to say something''. A fellow can infringe her neighbour’s rights by omission just as well as she can by action.”
+A [[mediocre lawyer|diligent student]] pipes up from the back: “But, why, can’t you see? It is an omission. A blank page is a ''failure'' to say something. A fellow can infringe her neighbour’s rights by omission just as well as she can by action.”
-''Au contraire.''
+Just so. But the semantic content of an empty page is null. It is neither action not omission, but a formless void. It is inert. It is neither [[alpha]] nor [[omega]], nor anything between. It lacks the divine breath of a creator. It conveys no premise and permits no conclusion of [[any type or kind]]. An ''omission'' to say this or that cannot be imprisoned within the margins of an empty page but is universal, inhabiting every page, however densely entexted, on which that thing is not said; riding every breath upon which the utterance does not pass.
-The semantic content of an empty page is null. It is neither action not omission, but a formless void; inert; lacking the divine breath of a creator. It is neither [[alpha]] nor [[omega]], nor anything between. An unmarked sheet is not a dog that fails to bark in the night time. It conveys no premise and permits no conclusion of [[any type or kind]]. An ''omission'' to say this or that cannot be imprisoned within the margins of an empty page: it is universal: it inhabits every page, however densely entexted, on which the thing is not said; it rides upon every breath on which the utterance does not pass.
+To paraphrase a British Prime Minister, “[[Brexit means Brexit|a blank page means a blank page]]”. So be in no doubt, dear reader: This statement, like the page it decorates, is joyously, wilfully, defiantly —and with the publisher’s unequivocal endorsement — ''blank’'. [[For the avoidance of doubt]].
-To paraphrase a British Prime Minister, “[[Brexit means Brexit|a blank page means a blank page]]”.Be in no doubt, dear reader: This statement, like the page it decorates, is joyously, wilfully, defiantly —and with the publisher’s unequivocal endorsement — ''blank’'. [[For the avoidance of doubt]].
+Except — and it brings no pleasure to point the glaringly obvious out, but here goes — as soon as one dollops a great wodge of italicised, square-bracketed text right in the middle of a page, IT IS ''NOT'' BLANK.
-Except — and it brings no pleasure to point the glaringly obvious out, but here goes — as soon as one dollops a great wodge of italicised, square-bracketed text right in the middle of a page, IT IS NOT BLANK.
 This puts us in a fine old pickle. If the only way we can be certain a page is blank is by writing on it, can we ever be sure of anything ever again? Have we hit a kind of Russell’s paradox<ref>Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R is itself not a member of itself, then it must contain itself. If it contains itself, then it cannot be a member of the set of all sets that are not members of themselves</ref> of the law? We seem to have hit a patch of legal quantum indeterminacy. What would Descartes think? Or Gödel? Can’t you just imagine Schrödinger, sitting on his chair, stroking his cat?