diff --git a/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py b/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
index d4a86f0..89d9004 100644
--- a/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
+++ b/mitterlib/ui/ui_pygtk.py
@@ -494,13 +494,11 @@ 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 not okay with
-        message = htmlize(message)
-        
+        message = re.sub(r'&', r'&', message)
+        #_log.debug('Rendering message: %s', message)
 
         # highlight URLs
         mask = r'<span foreground="%s">\1</span>' % (