Default character encoding in Gnome Terminal

[Sebastian Tennant <sebyte smolny plus com>]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me how to make utf-8 the default character encoding
used by Gnome Terminal at start-up?

My /etc/environment reads:

  en_GB.UTF-8

and my ~/.bash_profile contains the following lines:

  export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8  # sets all the LC_* variables except LC_ALL
  export LC_COLLATE=POSIX  # req'd for POSIX directory listings
  export LC_TIME=POSIX     # req'd for POSIX time and date format in directory listings

... so my environment is decidedly 'Unicode', (I can't believe
LC_COLLATE or LC_TIME affect things), yet the default character
encoding in Gnome Terminal at startup is always:

  Current locale (ANSI_X3.4-1968)

The 'Terminal' -> 'Set character encoding' menu contains UTF-8 as an
option, but I have to manually choose it every time.

TIA

sdt