diff --git a/Changelog b/Changelog
index ba30cce..2356315 100644
--- a/Changelog
+++ b/Changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+ 2.26
+	 - fixed invalid regexp in _open() which circumvented
+	   explicit empty block to work when the block statement
+	   included whitespaces.
+	
+	 - more finetuning in Makefile.PL for cleaning emacs'
+	   ~ files.
+
+
  2.25
 	 - fixed bug with not working -IncludeRelative setting when
 	   including a config file. It were only included from the
diff --git a/General.pm b/General.pm
index ddafc43..62e6194 100644
--- a/General.pm
+++ b/General.pm
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ use strict;
 use Carp;
 use Exporter;
 
-$Config::General::VERSION = "2.25";
+$Config::General::VERSION = "2.26";
 
 use vars  qw(@ISA @EXPORT);
 @ISA    = qw(Exporter);
@@ -452,7 +452,7 @@ sub _read {
 
 
     # transform explicit-empty blocks to conforming blocks
-    if (/^<([^\/]+?.*?)\/>$/) {
+    if (/\s*<([^\/]+?.*?)\/>$/) {
       my $block = $1;
       my $orig  = $_;
       $orig     =~ s/\/>$/>/;
@@ -1986,7 +1986,7 @@ Thomas Linden <tom@daemon.de>
 
 =head1 VERSION
 
-2.25
+2.26
 
 =cut
 
diff --git a/Makefile.PL b/Makefile.PL
index 562d42d..53ccc6e 100644
--- a/Makefile.PL
+++ b/Makefile.PL
@@ -4,5 +4,5 @@ use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
 WriteMakefile(
 	      'NAME'	=> 'Config::General',
 	      'VERSION_FROM' => 'General.pm', # finds $VERSION
-	      'clean' => { FILES => 't/cfg.out t/test.cfg *~ t/~' },
+	      'clean' => { FILES => 't/cfg.out t/test.cfg *~ */*~' },
 );
diff --git a/README b/README
index 0ea06af..f360ccc 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -104,4 +104,4 @@ AUTHOR
 
 
 VERSION
-	2.25
+	2.26