unicode conversion

hi all,
  this is what I did, comments?

def utf8String(string):
    """hands back a unicoded string"""
    try:
        string = unicode(string)
    except UnicodeError, e:
        newstring = ''
        for char in string:
            if ord(char) > 127:
                newstring = newstring + '#'
            else:
                newstring = newstring + char
        newstring = newstring + 'NOTE: Characters replaced outside of UTF8 Range'
        return unicode(newstring)
    else:
        return string


-sv