As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and other multi-million-sellers nudge their careers forward at a snail's pace, Knopfler prepares to release his fifth studio album of the decade, and it's another jewel. Get Lucky, recorded at his award-winning British Grove Studios in west London and co-produced with longtime cohorts Chuck Ainlay and Guy Fletcher, is a beautifully crafted exploration of a lifetime of musical roots; fluently combining folk and blues with his original songwriting, the whole containing personalized British ingredients and vivid observational lyricism. Gratefully seizing on this elongated hot streak of productivity, the Grammy Award-winning guitar hero of more than 30 years' standing displays his usual flair for understatement. "I just keep turning up," he says. "That's exactly what it is, and I think you appreciate it a lot more as you get older. I used to take it for granted when I was a kid. I don't think I respected whatever talent I had enough - I had to learn that. So now I just get behind the plough. That's how things happen. "I can be easily distracted," he smiles. "That's what the teachers always said about me. But even with that I still manage to be writing away. So I'm still the ragpicker in a way. I've got these things that are coming together, and that are together, and recording too much stuff as well. There's no shortage of stuff hanging around. I could go back in the studio now if the lads were here." Now Knopfler and the band are looking forward to hitting the road once again in 2010. "It's like being captain of a little fighting ship really, and I enjoy the team thing of being on the road, I enjoy being with the crew. I suppose one of the reasons I like it so much is that I know it's not going to be a year-long thing." Amid the new material, when the audiences call for the songs that became part of all our lives, he will relish it. "The thing about the old Straits songs is that they are signposts for people's lives. Obviously I'll play them differently here and there to keep it alive and meaningful to me, and away from a cabaret thing. But there are times, like the twiddly bits at the end of 'Sultans,' if you don't do your twiddly bits, the world's not right for people. I like playing the old songs, I wrote them and people like to hear them, it's as simple as that." In the end, Mark Knopfler thrives on never taking the audience for granted. "I think there's still a place for the game that I'm playing," he muses. "It's not on the same pitch as a lot of other people are playing, mine's over here and theirs is over there, but people still want to hear crafted songs."