Problem with pound signs (=?iso-8859-1?q?=A3?=) in terminal window

[bill purvis]

Hi,
I changed to Ubuntu a few weeks ago and have only just
noticed a small problem: when I type a pound sign (£)
in the terminal window it acts a bit like ^C, cancelling
the input line and displaying a '#' character.
I noticed this trying to update stuff in my MySQL
database and thought at first it was a MySQL problem
but then realised that it does it at the normal command 
prompt also. I used to use XTerm terminal windows under
Mandrake before I switched and never saw this problem.
Anyone know what is going on, and more importantly,
how to get out of it?

Bill
-- 
+---------------------------------------+
| Bill Purvis, Amateur Mathematician    |
|  email: bil at beeb.net                  |
|  http://bil.members.beeb.net          |
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