#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $line = q{<br>&lt;/pre&gt;<br>&lt;img src=http://blah.microsoft.com/analog_sc/bp/_lessons_learned/2788_1.jpg&gt;<br>&lt;br&gt;<br>&lt;img};

print qq{LINE:[$line]\n};

tagremover( $line );

print qq{LINE:[$line]\n};

sub tagremover {
        $_[0] =~ s/&lt;/</g;
        $_[0] =~ s/&gt;/>/g;
}