As a writer, Knopfler swiftly showed himself to be one of Britain’s best exponents of what in America is known as “heartland rock”, and to his great credit, he made it feel distinctly of its own home – American in sound, certainly, but British in feeling. When it comes to rock & roll, Britain doesn’t have America’s mythic properties; but if, as I did when I first heard Dire Straits, you live on the equator, London or Newcastle are no less exotic to you than, say, the Rust Belt. There is no implicit cringe in Knopfler’s best songs; no sense that his is an inferior subject. Rightly so.