How to make MySQL handle UTF-8 properly

To make this 'permanent', in my.cnf:

[client]
default-character-set=utf8
[mysqld]
character-set-server = utf8

To check, go to the client and show some variables:

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%';

Verify that they're all utf8, except ..._filesystem, which should be binary and ..._dir, that points somewhere in the MySQL installation.