Why can't I set sys.ps1 to a unicode string?

[Thomas Jollans]

On Thursday 12 August 2010, it occurred to RG to exclaim:
> %%% /&%%%
> 
> If this were a properly unicode-enabled newsreader you would see a
> yin-yang symbol in the middle of s2.

Are you sure about that? Now maybe the mailing list gateway is messing things 
up, but I rather suspect your newsreader (or USENET server) is sending out 
nonsense. After all, Unicode usually works around here.

Some excerpts from the message, as I received it:

Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

[...]

>>> print s2
%%% /&%%% 

No quoted-printable. No UTF-7. Just three completely random characters?