I think you may have misunderstood. "smarting over" is somewhat idiomatic English. It means to be embarrassed by something. In other words, you and the person you replied to seem to agree.
Yep, that's exactly what I mean. We British had Prestel of course, but the loss of that was no dent to national pride, since Tim Berners-Lee is a Brit.
"Smart" also means, umm, "a stinging sensation" I guess. The physical manifestation of embarrassment, or the physical equivalent of the emotion of embarrassment. You might say, "ow, that smarts". I didn't realize it wouldn't translate :-)
