This week's column is not meant as an insult to the good and tasteful people of the West Midlands and, in particular, the Black Country. It is, however, meant as a direct and very personal insult to the bad and tasteless ones.

Unfortunately, I suspect they are in the majority. My wife's family, whom I place in the first category, live in the area and so I visit about every three months. In theory, therefore, this column should over the years have included a surprisingly large number of reviews from that part of the world.

It hasn't. Why? There's nowhere to bloody go. Really. Nowhere at all. Each time we prepare for a weekend away near Stourbridge, where my dear ma-in-law lives, I sit down with the guidebooks and scan furiously, hoping, with each new study, that somehow, something might have changed since the last time I looked. I scan the net. I beg for recommendations. But nothing.

OK. Almost nothing. For practical reasons, the kind of place I can review has to be able to cope with three generations of a family on a Sunday lunchtime. Hardly controversial, is it? This does mean that I have never been able to write up formally the French Connection in Stourbridge, a good sturdy French bistro which is closed on Sundays. You see how desperate the situation is? I can name the place I haven't yet reviewed.

This time, I decided to go back to basics. Scanning through the AA Pub Guide, which should be ashamed of itself for including it, I came across a listing for the Dry Dock in Netherton. It's part of the Little Pub Company, and I recalled a long time ago visiting another one near Kidderminster. Its thing was enormous Desperate Dan steak pies. OK, I thought. Do that. A good solid pub serving good solid pies. What could be better?

I have been to nastier locations but not often. On the plus side, at least there were no burning cars outside. It sits in a wretched little corner of Black Country housing, reached through 100 acres of industrial estate.

The pub itself, with a complete and brightly painted canal barge inside as the bar, is actually rather charming, in a rough-and-ready sort of way. Nothing else was.

I tried to order an apple juice for my two-year-old son, Eddie. They don't hold with apple juice at the Dry Dock; it had to be a glass of lemonade, festering with sugar. I decided to try to get into the local mood by buying a bag of pork scratchings. When in the Black Country, do as... Watching my son, with his lemonade and scratchings before him, I suddenly understood the complexion of the locals. In Netherton, if a local has colour in their cheeks, it's probably because of a tattoo.

Onwards to the food. I ordered the Desperate Dan pie. It turned up as a huge pot of steak and kidney which was, oh joy, lukewarm to cold. Beneath the mess of congealing meat, I found what tasted like yesterday's vegetables. The pastry top, with its comedy pastry horns, had been baked in advance and left to chill. It was cardboard. I could have complained, but that would have meant eating it when they brought it back - and I really didn't want to. A plate of roast pork with Paxo stuffing and Bisto gravy was as disgusting as it sounds. As to two plates of scampi, the freezer bag had clearly been opened with great professionalism. I had never before imagined that £17 for four could be bad value, but it was.

So Rayner eats in shitty pub and has shitty meal. Not exactly headline stuff, is it? The thing is, I was really trying. I wanted to review somewhere good and I couldn't. And why is it like this? Because the local population doesn't want good food. Simple as that. So the next time someone tells you there's a food revolution apace in Britain, tell them to go to the Black Country. And if they find anywhere worth eating perhaps they could let me know. But believe me, I won't be holding my breath.