Blogger: space above tables

I've noticed that some innocuous html tabling in your blogger posts produces an inexplicable void between the text above and the table below. To illustrate, I'll insert a table here which contains verbatim the snippet of code between HERE and THERE:

row one

row two

THERE: HERE and THERE: <table border="1"> <tr> <td> row one </td> </tr> <tr> <td> row two </td> </tr> <tr> <td> THERE: <tt>HERE and THERE:...

As you can see, what's with the space??
Here's the dilio: Blogger loves to insert a <br /> whenever a bloggee (is that what I am?) hits a newline. So when I'm a-typin' away with my </td> \n </tr> \n <tr> &c, I'm unwittingly inserting a loafing linebreak into that tenebrious nether region tween trows and tdata cells. And where do you think these purgatorial pockets of padding percolate? Why, they are so presumptuous as to prepend themselves precisely previous to our table!

The solution? Simply don't newline in the nether regions:
<table><tr><td> (newlines allowed here!!)\n
</td> (but not here!!!) <td> (ok again :)

Don't worry, I will also make some attempt at getting this fixed a better way!