diff --git a/wortschlucker/src/wortschlucker.py b/wortschlucker/src/wortschlucker.py
index c998e93..af389e3 100755
--- a/wortschlucker/src/wortschlucker.py
+++ b/wortschlucker/src/wortschlucker.py
@@ -165,6 +165,9 @@ class Poll(sqlobject.SQLObject):
         complete_url = self.get_url(absolute=True)
         title = "%s %s %s" % (config.get('misc', 'twitter_alert_prefix'),
                 self.title[:79], complete_url)
+        # the following line is quick and dirty fix for the unicode bug twitter exception.
+        # of course it would be better to preserve the umlauts somehow...
+        title = title.encode('ascii','ignore')
         twitter_key = config.get('misc', 'twitter_consumer_key')
         twitter_secret = config.get('misc', 'twitter_consumer_secret')
         twitter_access_key = config.get('misc', 'twitter_access_token_key')