The first verse of “The Lumberjack song” includes the phrase “on wednesdays I go shopping and have buttered scones for tea”. Was/is this a british stereotype of being gay (like the limp-wristed hand flap or that particular accent is in the US)?
That verse has always puzzled me because all the rest have very blatantly gay stuff at that same part of the verse.
In the clip I’ve seen, the lumberjack’s “best girl” doesn’t get concerned until a later verse, so I figured that going shopping and having buttered scones for tea on wednesday was normal, or at least normal enough to not raise serious concerns.
Crumpets and tea, on the other hand, were considered cause for concern when discussing students at Upper Canada College. 
I’d say the line was the thin end if a gradient into things considered less manly.
I don’t think the lumberjack character in the song is actually framed as a gay person, in fact. Effeminate, transvestite or transgender, maybe.
I always took the line to be an expression of utter boring normality. Someone who has zero excitement in life and a desperately well ordered life. There is a slight hint of effeteness, as this is the sort of characterisation one might associate with a woman of a certain age, and not the rugged male. It does set the scene for ever more incongruous lyrics.
OK, I just double-checked the lyrics:
I don’t see any gay stereotypes in there at all.
I mean, it’s certainly true that in Britain in the 60s and 70s, many people lumped homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals and even paedophiles and rapists into one big amorphous category ‘perverts’, but I credit the Monty Python crew with a little more intelligence than that.
Yeah it seems more like he’s just a very un-manly man who has a very manly job. The verses get more and more ludicrous, so the buttered scones for tea bit is not meant to be particularly outrageous.
Like the girl tearfully exclaims at the end of the song: “but I thought you were so rugged!”
It’s not gay to eat buttered scones for tea, but it’s not very rugged either. It’s the first thing that doesn’t quite fit with the “rugged” impression of a lumberjack. You’re thinking more along the lines of “I cut down trees, I wrestle bears”, not buttered scones.
Methinks there is no use trying to read sense in something that is clearly intended to be nonsensical.
I was at the 40th anniversary show and this was still Carol Cleveland’s only line. You’d think after 40 years they could have written her a second one.
#stealthbrag
To some people, the UK itself is a gay stereotype.
What people?
It was originally Connie Booth.
In some versions (Hollywood Bowl?) its “I thought you were so butch.” Which makes it seem like more of a gay thing.
But the buttered scones thing is just supposed to be slightly off character for a lumberjack to start the absurdity.
Stupid ones.
So it was. :smack:
Even though Cleese and Booth remained friends after the divorce Cleveland did the later live performances.
If true, I would find myself strangely proud of that fact.
I say strangely, as although I’m British, I’m not gay.
What the heck do we have to do to prove Britain isn’t gay? Invade Andorra?.
We could also invade Chad, but I have a feeling that might not help with this particular problem.
I was more wondering if it was one of those jokes that seem perfectly reasonable without the cultural context. (Like, supposedly, grown men holding pinkies isn’t particularly gay* in India)
*when I refer to an (non-sexual) activity as gay I mean “more characteristic of the opposite gender”. Basicially it combines effeminate (for guys) and butch (for girls) into a single non-gendered adjective. when referring to a person, it means either bi/homosexual or ‘living up to the homosexual stereotype’ (e.g. Graham Norton).
Crikey. OK - good luck with that.