diff --git a/mitterlib/__init__.py b/mitterlib/__init__.py
index 2f9d742..e3074ea 100644
--- a/mitterlib/__init__.py
+++ b/mitterlib/__init__.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 
 import os.path
 import glob
+import htmlentitydefs
 
 def module_search(source, ignore):
     """Search for modules in the source directory. Ignore any modules 
@@ -37,3 +38,17 @@ def module_search(source, ignore):
         # TODO: Maybe this is a good place to test if the module is
         # "importable"
         yield module_name
+
+def htmlize(text):
+    """Convert accented characters to their HTML entities."""
+    new = []
+    # XXX: This is not very effective, but Twitter only accepts 140 chars,
+    # so it won't be a big pain.
+    for char in text:
+        if ord(char) in htmlentitydefs.codepoint2name:
+            new.append('&%s;' % (htmlentitydefs.codepoint2name[ord(char)]))
+        else:
+            new.append(char)
+    return ''.join(new)
+
+
diff --git a/mitterlib/network/twitter.py b/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
index 48a6e2e..cc5bee1 100644
--- a/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
+++ b/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
@@ -73,19 +73,6 @@ def _unhtml(text):
     return result
 
 
-def _htmlize(text):
-    """Convert accented characters to their HTML entities."""
-    new = []
-    # XXX: This is not very effective, but Twitter only accepts 140 chars,
-    # so it won't be a big pain.
-    for char in text:
-        if ord(char) in htmlentitydefs.codepoint2name:
-            new.append('&%s;' % (htmlentitydefs.codepoint2name[ord(char)]))
-        else:
-            new.append(char)
-    return ''.join(new)
-
-
 def _to_datetime(server_str):
     """Convert a date send by the server to a datetime object.
     Ex:
@@ -375,7 +362,7 @@ class Connection(NetworkBase):
         # accents to HTML entities, so everything falls into ASCII.
 
         body = {
-            'status': _htmlize(status),
+            'status': htmlize(status),
             'source': 'mitter'}
 
         if reply_to:
diff --git a/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py b/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
index 22f8a66..d4a86f0 100644
--- a/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
+++ b/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import re
 import urllib2
 
 from mitterlib.ui.helpers.image_helpers import find_image
+from mitterlib import htmlize
 
 from mitterlib.constants import gpl_3, version
 #from mitterlib.ui.helpers.utils import str_len
@@ -254,7 +255,7 @@ class Interface(object):
         # Store NetworkData objects only
         grid_store = gtk.ListStore(object)
         grid_store.set_sort_column_id(0, gtk.SORT_ASCENDING)
-        grid_store.set_default_sort_func(self._order_datetime)
+        grid_store.set_sort_func(0, self._order_datetime)
 
         self._grid = gtk.TreeView(grid_store)
         self._grid.set_property('headers-visible', False)
@@ -493,10 +494,13 @@ class Interface(object):
         message = data.message
         username = data.username
 
+        #_log.debug('Rendering message: %s', message)
+
         time = timesince.timesince(data.message_time)
 
-        # unescape escaped entities that pango is okay with
-        #message = re.sub(r'&(?!(amp;|gt;|lt;|quot;|apos;))', r'&', message)
+        # unescape escaped entities that pango is not okay with
+        message = htmlize(message)
+        
 
         # highlight URLs
         mask = r'<span foreground="%s">\1</span>' % (
@@ -612,12 +616,12 @@ class Interface(object):
         if (not message1) or \
                 (not message1.message_time) or \
                 (message1.message_time > message2.message_time):
-            return 1
+            return -1
 
         if (not message2) or \
                 (not message2.message_time) or \
                 (message2.message_time > message1.message_time):
-            return -1
+            return 1
         return 0
 
     # ------------------------------------------------------------