Dodge the grisly grub or you risk getting sick on Route 66

There are two ways to make a travelogue about the States. You can go the route of Billy Connolly in his Great American Trail on ITV, visiting places that make your heart sing The Star Spangled Banner — in his case, a factory that makes exquisite guitars.

Or you can do it like Si King and Dave Myers on Hairy Bikers: Route 66 ( BBC2). They rolled in to Lincoln, Illinois, and headed straight for the nearest bar. Locals boasted it served the best cheeseburgers in the world... except the kitchen was closed.

So was the town’s chief employer, the bottle factory — closed permanently. About 150 workers had lost their jobs. A bunch of guys were sitting at the counter drinking beer in a sour mood, like the bottles were to blame and would suffer for it before the night was over.

Si and Dave are big blokes, on bigger bikes, and most people wouldn’t think of messing with them. But our boys looked nervous. They had strayed off the tourist track.

Lincoln was meant to be home to the nation’s top ‘roadside attraction’, the largest covered wagon in the world. It turned out to be a ramshackle cart with a cartoon statue of Abraham Lincoln on the driving seat with his paint peeling. And someone had nicked the wagon cover.

By now, I was starting to wonder if this show had been commissioned by President Trump to deter unwelcome immigrants.

It didn’t get better. They were later welcomed by the elders of an Amish community, which was picturesque, but lunch was noodles on mashed potato. Next stop was a fast-food concession in St Louis that served frozen custard, a processed dessert so stodgy that you could turn the cardboard pot over and eat it upside down.

Then it was on to a restaurant run by cheerful Bosnian emigres, whose speciality was chopped pork in a straitjacket of cabbage leaf. The cook explained that, if she could throw one at her husband and it didn’t burst, the consistency was just right.

No wonder the rolling Stones sang something about ‘getting sick on route 66’. Mick Jagger must have had the frozen custard.

The biker buddies were having a whale of a time though. ‘Yabba dabba doo, it’s another route 66 icon, gimme five, look at that, isn’t that the best?’ effervesced Dave the chatterbox. ‘Wow,’ agreed his taciturn pal. The cuisine at Great Ormond Street hospital [GOSh] didn’t look much better as Paul O’Grady returned for another series of Little Heroes (ITV). The acidly witty presenter, who disguises his soft side behind a barrage of barbed quips, was sent to the kitchens to help out, and couldn’t stop sniggering at the reserves of baked beans stacked in industrial cans.

Then he stirred up some ominously orange soup. Let’s hope ketchup is a wonder-food, because there are a lot of brave children in that hospital who deserve the best nutrition. Bake Off’s Prue Leith, who last month was appointed to advise a government review on NhS food, could do worse than starting at GOSh.

A useless cook he may be, but Paul is brilliant with the children, full of jokes yet never embarrassed to ask the difficult questions. ‘ Is it painful?’ he asked regan, a girl with a twisted spine. ‘That’s not fair, is it?’

Thanks to the hospital’s outstanding surgeons, regan was soon so much better that she was pleading to play on a trampoline.

This show presents these children’s stories without being sentimental. Doing that well is harder than frozen custard.