shortening an elif construct

[Skaperen]

in my utf-8 conversion function i use several powers of 2 but coded them like

    two16 = 2**16
    two21 = 2**21
    two26 = 2**26
    ...
    ...
    ...
    elif u < two16: # 2 octets
        ...
    elif u < two21: # 3 octets
        ...
    elif u < two26: # 4 octets

and so on.

when i get the code complete, tested working, and ready to release, i will post it.