Dreaded Apostrophe

Hi All
I find myself stumbling over the humble looking single inverted comma over and over again!

First it was while putting it in a MySQL database,
then while retrieving it,
then while escaping it if magic quote gpc is enabled on the server
then while pulling it in flash through a dynamically generated/updated XML

I have managed to solve the above by googling or experimenting or from the help of the kind folk on this forum... still the single inverted comma wont sit still

Now it has mysteriously started creating mischief when retrieved from the database and displayed in a textfield so that the user can update the text.

So if i have a string like Hello's World and it has successfully entered the MySQL database after going through mysql_real_escape_string(), it creates a problem when retrieved inside a textfield. It just doesnt show anything from the single inverted comma onwards... so it just shows
Hello

The same thing can be echoed successfully but in a textfield it fails. This problem has not existed in the past for me. I have recently changed to Ubuntu 8.04 and Bluehost... so maybe this is something to do with the server... magic_quotes_gpc is off on my server.... also i tried testing htmlspecialchars() on a string with a single inverted comma but it did nothing to it...
Please help

Many thanks in advance

As usual, this is a magical forum...
I posted the above some time ago and found the solution after experimenting a bit...

I had to just use htmlspecialchars along with ENT_QUOTES specified as the second option...