That explains the weirdness I saw, but how would you suggest the OP solve the original problem?

How I did it :)

wget -O junk ?abspart=1;displaytype=displaycode;node_id=978515;part=1

iconv -f windows-1252 -t UTF-8 < junk > pm978515.pl

Then add  use utf8; at the top of the file pm978515.pl

Also, do you mean that "use utf8" must be listed first in the "use" list?

If you add "use utf8;" after  $middlebox->insert('end',"This is a test of the œ character"); it won't work, the string won't be displayed properly because it won't be marked/decoded as utf