But I don't understand blocks.
I getting errors from about like 885 of blocklib.php which says
$blocknames = explode(',', $posblocks[$i]);
I think this does the wrong thing if $posblocks[$i] is '' (for example if you have no blocks in either the left or right column). Instead I think it should be
$blocknames = $posblocks[$i] ? explode(',', $posblocks[$i]) : array();
Can someone who understands these things either confirm or deny. Thanks.
Ah I was reading the docs too quickly (http://php.net/explode) and saw FALSE (but it was about the seprator). 
No argument about the stupidity of array('');