back to article Michael Gove: C'mon kids, quit sexting – send love poems instead

Education Secretary Michael Gove has apparently come over all gooey and romantic by plugging a new app called Love Book that was created by one of his wife's close friends. The Tory MP is urging teenagers to stop the practice of sending naughty messages to each other – the phenomenon known as sexting – and urged them to …

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  1. Sandpit
    Black Helicopters

    Esiri

    Just wait until Apple finds out someone is writing Apps under the name of eSiri

  2. Cosmo
    Devil

    Love Poem

    Roses are Red

    Violets are Blue

    <censored>

    <censored>

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Love Poem

      Roses are reddish, Violets are blue-ish - no wait we can't have that one either.

      1. squigbobble

        Re: Love Poem

        Roses are reddish,

        Violets are bluish,

        I wish I'd bought a phone with a decent camera

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Love Poem

          Blinkin' flip people: Violets are _VIOLET_

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Violets are violet

            So is the sky but convention says that we ignore physics and go with poetical niceties.

            (The sky looks blue because it floods the blue cones in your eyes)

    2. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

      Re: Love Poem

      I can confirm that the full poem goes:

      Roses are red

      Violets are blue

      I've got a knife

      Get in the van

  3. HollyHopDrive

    It seems to me,

    This man called gove,

    Is really getting,

    Up my nose.

    He spouts his tripe,

    For all to hear,

    Yet his opinions,

    Are for all to fear.

    Teachers get it in the neck,

    And now the yoof, are being told too

    That the way the text is just like poo.

    An iphone app is the answer to this

    Not the educational policy that reeks of piss.

    Gove is just not on the right front

    Because he a posh little c...!

  4. adnim
    Joke

    Rays of sunlight caress your form whilst Eros calls the tune

    revealing moisture, your parted lips, I will taste them soon.

    Such heady heights of bliss await, I rise under your touch.

    and to get you ready for what I want, here's a selfie of my crotch.

  5. Disintegrationnotallowed

    Self Serving

    Politician in self serving act, what is the world coming to?

  6. Pete 2 Silver badge

    I suppose it *is* possible

    Let's see, Stop sexting and send a love poem instead ...

    There was a young man from Cape Horn,

    who wished he had never been born,

    he wouldn’t have been,

    if his father had seen,

    that the end of his condom was torn

    Yup! 156 characters. It will just fit, as the actress said to the proverbial.

  7. Captain Hogwash

    So...

    the guy in charge of education is encouraging plagiarism rather than original thinking?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hey Kids! This App's approved by Joe 90's Dad (*)

    Yeah, right. No-one with half a brain would seriously expect Michael Gove "promoting" this app (and the associated social behaviour) to have any effect upon teenagers, other than a negative one. Ditto pretty much any other moralising, middle-aged Tory MPs old enough to be their Dad.

    One suspects that they know this damn well and the whole thing is *really* aimed at getting "think about the children" votes from their Daily Mail reading parents. Then again, one should never underestimate the out-of-touch egotism of politicians.

    (*) Having done a quick web search confirms that I'm far from the first to think that Michael Gove looks like Joe 90, at least when he has his glasses on:-

    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451b31c69e2017d3d0d31ef970c-500wi

    1. Fogcat

      Re: Hey Kids! This App's approved by Joe 90's Dad (*)

      I thought everybody knew he looks like Pob

      http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/GrandLunar/Silly/MichaelGoveMPandPob.jpg

      1. Fogcat

        Re: Hey Kids! This App's approved by Joe 90's Dad (*)

        And that "call me Dave" looks like Henry from Thomas the Tank Engine

        http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BJ6e5V5CUAIv3AR.jpg:large

  9. Natalie Gritpants

    He should resign

    Blatant use of his position in power to financially help his friends. This is getting more and more like China every day.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: He should resign

      At least the Chinese know how to deal with their unpopular politicians...wouldn't it be nice if all our MPs could have a free, paid-for-by-the-taxpayer, holiday for life in Dartmoor?

  10. Potemkine Silver badge
    Trollface

    Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V

    Unless kids learn someday to write sentences with words in them instead of acronyms or barbarisms, but I doubt about it....

  11. Code Monkey

    Roses are red

    Voilets are blue

    I'm often blunt

    Gove is <redacted>

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mary had a little lamb, and it was always gruntin'...

      Given that the standard form of the poem has the last word rhyming with "blue", I'm trying to imagine what would require "redacting".

      "I'm often blunt, Gove is so too"?

      "Gove is a poo"? That's got to be it...

      (Yeah, I know what *you* meant :-P )

      1. Code Monkey
        Windows

        Re: Mary had a little lamb, and it was always gruntin'...

        Ha!

        I shall add poetry to the very long of things not to attempt on a Monday.

  12. spiny norman

    Limerick Plus

    "Stop sexting" said Tory man Gove

    "And text poems that celebrate Love.

    It may take more time

    To make the lines rhyme

    but my friend has an app

    that takes care of all that.

    All you oiks need to do

    Is use it for a week or two

    until she can sell it to Yahoo,

    and then the earth in her wallet will Move."

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    John Dryden 1631-1700

    Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen,

    Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green:

    She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guessed

    By the towsing and tumbling and touching her breast:

    She saw the men eager, but was at a loss

    What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;

    "Ah!" she cried, "ah, for a languishing maid

    In a country of Christians to die without aid!

    Not a Whig, or a Tory, or Trimmer at least,

    Or a Protestant parson, or Catholic priest,

    To instruct a young virgin that is at a loss

    What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;

    Cupid in shape of a swain did appear;

    He saw the sad wound, and in pity drew near;

    Then showed her his arrow, and bid her not fear,

    For the pain was no more than a maiden may bear;

    When the balm was infused, she was not at a loss

    What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;

    By their praying and whining,

    And clasping and twining,

    And panting and wishing,

    And sighing and kissing,

    And sighing and kissing so close.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Go to jail, go directly to jail...

      only fifteen? I think that means that you are guilty of making/transmitting naughtiness, worthy of years in chokey followed by life on the naughty person's register, and that all the readers of El Reg are now guilty of possessing such evil stuff. I think we should all go en masse to Cannon Row police station and turn ourselves in.

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        And we know where he is

        The scoundrel is hiding in Westminster Abbey. Dispatch the plod immediately!

        OK, he might be a little bit dead but dig him up anyway and charge him forthwith. They did it to a pope* why not a poet. Can't have dead people making a mockery of the law.

        *Pope Formosus for those who might care.

  14. freddyeggs

    Out of touch old man says to kids...

    please text lovely poems to each other ...

    Kids say,

    But sexting my nads is poetry, fogey

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another classic poem

    Thomas Hardy 1840 - 1928

    (Not all Hardy's writings were bleak. This is a conversation between two women meeting in the street)

    .

    "O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

    Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

    And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" —

    "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

    .

    — "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

    Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

    And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" —

    "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

    .

    — "At home in the barton you said thee' and thou,'

    And thik oon,' and theäs oon,' and t'other'; but now

    Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" —

    "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

    .

    — "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

    But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,

    And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" —

    "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

    .

    — "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

    And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem

    To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" —

    "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

    .

    — "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

    And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" —

    "My dear — a raw country girl, such as you be,

    Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

  16. Paul Slater
    Happy

    Roses are red

    Violets are blue

    I'm crap at poetry

    Nice arse.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Short form for texting

    Had we but world enough and time,

    this coyness lady would be no crime

    [...]

    Now therefore, while the youthful hue

    Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

    And while thy willing soul transpires

    At every pore with instant fires,

    Now let us sport us while we may;

    .

    Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) "To his Coy Mistress"

  18. Lamont Cranston

    Romance, eh?

    "Roses are red,

    Cabbage is green,

    I like your legs,

    And the bit inbetween."

    Piss off, Gove.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gove Bibles

    Gove made sure every school had a free bible. I seem to remember The "Song of Solomon" was well thumbed in our school (before the internet).

    .

    "My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice."

    .

    "Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

    Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense."

  20. Dr_N

    The creepy puppet who controls Gove...

    ... as portrayed on The Now Show.

    Do it, Govey: tell the kids to download a poetry app.

    Go on, you know you want to......

  21. Caesarius

    Nice idea, but...

    I remember an idealistic and misguided attempt to stop people writing on the walls in the boys toilets. I put up a sheet of paper for people to use, so that the caretaker need not repaint the walls so often. Someone wrote on the wall nearby "Damn! Missed!"

    I think the literary examples quoted above would be inspiring for some. Others would benefit from being shown examples of litotes etc. etc. But there will always be those who kick against the goads.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Because childish poetry is always more acceptable

    just ask any man from Nantucket.

    1. Irony Deficient

      any man from Nantucket

      Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

      So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names — a singularly common fashion on the island — and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language — that man makes one in a whole nation’s census — a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

      — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Roses are Red

    Violets are Blue

    I want to have Sex

    Preferably with You

  24. Steven Roper

    Great

    So the kids will avoid being hit with kiddy porn charges and get nailed for sexual harassment instead. Well, it is a step up I suppose.

  25. Graham Marsden

    Hmm...

    Roses are red,

    Violets are blue.

    Show me your tits,

    Fancy a screw?

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