Is the bottle half-full or half-empty? Never is that perennial question more pertinent than at the end of August. Pessimists see nothing but grey clouds ahead. The kids are moaning about going back to school. Adults have five months of slog ahead before the next Bank Holiday. Summer has almost finished - not that it ever started this year. Shortening days, a nip in the air: all that casts a pall over their spirits.

By contrast, we in the “half full” camp can hardly contain our glee. The arrival of autumn? Bliss! It's the moment when, like Sleeping Beauty, every theatre, orchestra, opera house and ballet company in Britain shakes off its summer slumber and springs back into action. And what a kaleidoscopic panoply of divertissements and dramas, ditties and dances, they present for our delectation. Forget the exultant crowing by the sports lobby about Britain's high placing in the Olympics medals table. If medals were awarded for culture, the variety and excellence of the British scene after ten years of lottery-funded reinvigoration would guarantee us No 1 spot in the world rankings.

In this issue of The Knowledge our critics select some of the hottest tickets of the autumn. But the trouble with selections is that they are selective. They don't indicate what every critic knows to be true: that we can write about only a fraction of the good things happening across the country.

And not just in London, either. Consider the transformation I have witnessed in the three decades that I've been reporting on the scene. Back in the 1970s there was no Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, no Sage or Baltic in Gateshead, no Barbican in London, no Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, no Symphony Hall in Birmingham, no theatre in Milton Keynes, no Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, no Opera North, no Tate Modern or Tate St Ives, no ... well, it would be quicker to list what paltry arts ventures we did have.

Of course, bricks and mortar in themselves don't guarantee artistic excellence. But alongside this building spree has been the renewal of regional repertory theatre, a tremendous effort by our orchestras to break down their “elitist” image and initiate youngsters in the glories of symphonic music, the restoration of sanity and standards at the Royal Shakespeare Company, an amazing folk-music renaissance in northeast England, and an explosion of provocative drama from the new National Theatre of Scotland.

Summer has its cultural riches too. All those festivals! But unless you live in Edinburgh, London or Glyndebourne you usually have to travel to find culture in months without an “r” in them. Whereas in autumn, culture comes to you. There isn't a city or major town in Britain now that can't boast a concert series, theatre, gallery or comedy club with a mouthwatering programme ahead. (Well, if there is, write and tell me. I'll start a name-and-shame campaign.)

Entertainment, enlightenment, edification, escapism, eccentricity: whatever sort of arty buzz you're looking for, the chances are that it's on your doorstep. The cultural bottle is not merely half full: it's brimming over. This autumn let's drink deep.

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