Is this guy a pillock or what?

Perhaps I'm becoming chippy in my old age, but does the following passage from an article by Philip Hensher represent a rational assessment of the difficulties of the London-based critic? Or is it a breathtaking example of patronising metropolitan smugness?

One of the curious features of arts coverage is, surely, the way that the public seems to be drawn to familiar locations and events which are universally agreed to be worth writing about. Outside quite a narrow ring of well-known theatres, sites of interest and the most famous of museums, even first-rate events have to take their chance, depending largely on the idle curiosity of commentators and visitors.
Notoriously, the problem is most acute outside London. It must be said that, in many cases, regular trips outside London would only occasionally reveal enterprises to rival the constant level of cultural riches we take for granted in the capital. There are a good number of excellent provincial theatres, of course; orchestras outside London struggle on, often very effectively; museums sometimes find it possible to put on an exhibition, and perhaps draw attention in the meantime to their own permanent collections. There is, as well, probably a much livelier popular music scene outside London which seems to wander from city to city - at the moment, the energy seems to be in Sheffield.
Arts in the provinces do, generally, get covered - there is a definite sense of duty about this among the arts commentators, and a new production of a play in a major provincial theatre, or a concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, or an exhibition at Tate Liverpool will generally get written about.

[My italics]

Note that "only occasionally" in the second paragraph, thus casually casting the vast majority of provincial cultural events beyond the pale of the "cultural riches" available within the capital. And what can one do but applaud the "sense of duty" that forces the London critics (only occasionally, mind you) to leave their London fastnesses and set petrified foot into the graceless philistine desert that is the provinces?