OK I rebuilt the database as utf8 and all my tables are also utf8 (see below) but I still get the problem when I have the ‘charset’=>‘utf8’ in my config for the database but commenting that out works fine. If my database is utf8 and my tables are utf8, shouldn’t my columns be utf8 by default? Do I still need to specify each and every column? 
That just seems ridiculous!
mysql> SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA S
-> WHERE schema_name = "xxxxxxxx";
+----------------------------+
| default_character_set_name |
+----------------------------+
| utf8 |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> show table status
-> ;
+-----------------+--------+---------+------------+------+----------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+----------+----------------+---------+
| Name | Engine | Version | Row_format | Rows | Avg_row_length | Data_length | Max_data_length | Index_length | Data_free | Auto_increment | Create_time | Update_time | Check_time | Collation | Checksum | Create_options | Comment |
+-----------------+--------+---------+------------+------+----------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+----------+----------------+---------+
| profiles | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 7 | 2340 | 16384 | 0 | 0 | 3145728 | NULL | 2010-12-04 18:50:09 | NULL | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| profiles_fields | MyISAM | 10 | Dynamic | 5 | 177 | 888 | 281474976710655 | 9216 | 0 | 6 | 2010-12-04 18:50:09 | 2010-12-04 18:50:09 | 2010-12-04 18:50:09 | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| quran_text | MyISAM | 10 | Dynamic | 6236 | 456 | 2845928 | 281474976710655 | 65536 | 0 | 6237 | 2010-12-04 18:50:28 | 2010-12-04 18:50:28 | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| surahs | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 114 | 143 | 16384 | 0 | 0 | 3145728 | NULL | 2010-12-04 18:50:09 | NULL | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| tracked_surahs | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 41 | 399 | 16384 | 0 | 49152 | 3145728 | 124 | 2010-12-04 18:50:10 | NULL | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| users | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 6 | 2730 | 16384 | 0 | 65536 | 3145728 | 15 | 2010-12-04 18:50:10 | NULL | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
| users_old | InnoDB | 10 | Compact | 3 | 5461 | 16384 | 0 | 0 | 3145728 | 4 | 2010-12-04 18:50:10 | NULL | NULL | utf8_general_ci | NULL | | |
+-----------------+--------+---------+------------+------+----------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+----------+----------------+---------+
7 rows in set (0.01 sec)