Issue with unicode

I can't include the pound sign (the UK currency symbol rather than the US hashmark) in my Descriptions when creating new issues. The character is 0xc2 0xa3 in utf-8, 0xa3 in iso-8859-1. I'm using a modern (Chromium 18) browser; the developer tools tell me the page character set is utf-8.

I'm based in the UK. I'm trying to use (the excellent) bitbucket cards to manage business issues. I can make do with 'L's for now.