It says something about this last year that I haven’t mentioned pretty much the only good thing that’s happened. Amongst the murders in Saudi, Baghdad, Dhaka and Istanbul, amongst the godawful clusterfuck of the EU referendum, amongst the deaths of Lemmy, Bowie and Prince, amongst the hellmouth of Syria, amongst the swirling labyrinths of my book, and my wife’s recent illness — I haven’t had the headspace to say welcome to my son, Indy Coll Sylvester. He is now three months old, and he’s a wee smasher. He looks like this:
Amongst the fog of all the bullshit, I’m trying to remember that Indy and Dora are the reasons I’m here, the reasons I work so hard, the reasons I keep writing. All those things are for the future, and the future is a place where life gets better.
Simon Sylvester 
My best teacher when I was a kid quoted Julian of Norwich to me, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’.
Although the christianity has left me, the quote hasn’t and it always comes to mind when things are especially crappy.