Delusions of grandeur
First year of uni in '95, when the internet and I were young, naive and barely acquainted, one of the nocturnal denizens of the hall computer room showed me a unix based chat system (telnet resort.org 2323 anyone?) and the prospect of more American college girls than the fingers of both hands could cope with. American college girls who, as you know, may go weak of knee and moist of pantie at any lump of maleness, no matter how unpalatable, who speaks with a genuine British accent. This, naturally, was the Holy Grail to a diffident English lad with litle else to do in the westernmost wilds of Wales and it was horribly, ruinously addictive. So I embarked upon a catalogue of assignations, over the next couple of years, that varied in terms of the emotional damage wrought on either party from the merely ill-advised, through the truly horrendous, to the utterly catastrophic. If ever a suitable QOTW arises then I may post a selection of these salutary tales.

Anyway, in the course of things, mix-tapes flew back and forth across the atlantic ocean. Now this was of course the mid-nineties when Britpop ruled the world and rarely was there ever a shit single in the top 40*. However, those pesky Americans weren't having any of it. Brit band after Brit band adventured off to crack the States and came back the next day to the collective shrug of the entire North American continent. With little hope of getting into the pants of any of my paramours, even on the back of a few well chosen tunes, I thought that I could at least use the humble mix tape to introduce great music to a few American dorms that were otherwise infected by hip hop, rap and, God help them, rnb. I also thought I could add to the sophistication quotient of a few Stateside music collections that were tragically bereft of Saint Etienne. Perhaps, even, in my own small way, I thought I could help to insinuate Britpop into the mainstream of their musical culture.

In the end they wanted Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls. *shrugs*

* A barefaced lie.

Length... All the way across the atlantic.
(Dr. Scambolic, Fri 8 Feb 2008, 1:34, 2 replies)

yuck
if you were talking to american girls who liked the Spice Girls, then you were picking the WRONG ones. I don't think I ever heard of a girl over the age of 13 who liked the Spice Girls.....and I had returned to college that year as a 21-yr old.
You should have gone for the ones that were listening to alternative and grunge and metal at that time.....they would have put out.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Sat 9 Feb 2008, 4:49, closed)

Ah...
Hmmm, should have been a bit clearer. I meant the good American people as a whole wanted Robbie and the Spice Girls, since they were the only ones from that period who achieved even modest success over there. However, to the credit of one of the girls I met, she did introduce me to the Smashing Pumpkins!
(Dr. Scambolic, Sun 10 Feb 2008, 21:22, closed)