Club Reps (ITV1); Inventions That Changed The World (BBC2): THE only question that Club Reps left you asking - apart from the obvious "why did I waste my time watching this?" - was why anyone wants to become a Club 18-30 rep?

But there's no shortage of hopefuls. Last year 5,000 applied, with only 100 getting jobs looking after "guests who just want to party".

Never mind the endless sun, sea and sex. As a rep your time is spent arguing with superiors, organising bar crawls and performing in tacky stage shows where a willingness to humiliate yourself rather than displaying any talent is required.

No wonder 30 per cent don't last the season. Cockney Louise is likely to be one of those who take an early plane home. She lost a box of T-shirts, the equivalent of murdering a guest in the Club Rep rule book, and was reduced to tears by boss Ash after being grassed up by a colleague.

Ash declared her "a very aggressive person and very emotional" - to the camera, behind her back. She dismissed the incident as a learning curve. I'd start packing now if I was her.

Spare a thought too for Elisha Gray, who was cheated out of being named the inventor of the telephone. In Inventions That Changed The World, Jeremy Clarkson reported that the discovery of "this communication on demand that we take for granted" was the result of skulduggery, death, electrocution and extreme personal sacrifice.

Carrier pigeons were grounded by visual telegraphs - messages flashed across the country from stations set ten miles apart - which could send a message from London to Portsmouth in three minutes.

Samuel Morse and his code followed, signalling the race for electronic communication. A French trawlerman provided a setback by dredging up an underwater cable, mistaking it for rare seaweed and cutting out a piece to take home to show his wife.

A chain of events involving batteries, a bathtub and a nine-year-old triggered a chain of events that led to the invention of the phone. Alexander Graham Bell was working on a similar idea and - this is where it gets spooky - the patents office received applications from both men within two hours of each other.

Exactly how Gray's idea ended up on Bell's patent application was explained by Clarkson. Bell's courier bribed the official, resulting in Bell being granted the patent - along with the accompanying fame and fortune. Gray sued, but had his appeal rejected by the US Supreme Court.

The tale had an extra twist. It appears that 20 years earlier a man in Cuba invented his version of the telephone. Not until June 2002 did a US Congress resolution recognise him as the true inventor.

We left Clarkson in the company of a leggy, blonde social anthropologist experimenting with picture messaging. Clarkson attempting to flirt into the phone camera was as horrific sight as a club rep on party night.

Published: 06/02/2004