Notes, projects and opinions from a UK creator
A contact form on a one-person site is a bouncer with a clipboard. A plain email address, a short list of what lands well and an honest note about reply times does the job far better — and makes the whole site feel like a person rather than a portal.
Everyone wants the big relaunch; almost nobody does the small stuff. Here's the twenty-minute Sunday night routine that actually keeps ChrisJM alive — four jobs, one checklist, and no ambition beyond leaving the site slightly better than I found it.
For years the 404 on chrisjm.co.uk was a single line of grey text. Now it's a tiny corner shop with stocked shelves, a bell, a standing cat, and an open invitation to write to me. Here's how it got built, and the surprisingly decent numbers it produced in its first month.
Every few months my list of side projects turns into a tin of assorted biscuits where half of them have gone soft. Here's the entirely unscientific sorting method I've landed on, why it works more often than it should, and the two places it falls flat on its face.
Six independent UK sites — newsletters, workshop logs, a stubborn forum or two — that still feel made by a person rather than a platform. What each one gets right, why it earns a repeat visit, and how to build a shortlist of your own instead of outsourcing your taste to a feed.
My portfolio has a page for unfinished work: paused builds, dormant ideas, and one project I killed on purpose. Here's why the messy middle belongs on a personal site in 2026, how to label it honestly, and how to write project notes that stay useful to whoever wanders past.
Most of what ends up on this site was not written at a tidy desk with a plant on it. It was written on a train, on a table the size of a beer mat, somewhere between Crewe and Rugby. Here's what actually works when the Wi-Fi dies and the person opposite is on a very loud call.
A personal website is not a job application with nicer fonts. It's a place where someone should be able to hear you think. Five rules I keep coming back to, using this site — notes, projects and opinions — as the guinea pig.
No office, no team, no whiteboard full of synergy. Just a kitchen table, a slightly moody router and a weekly routine that mostly holds together. Here's the honest version of how ChrisJM gets planned, written and shipped — including the bits that still go wrong.
Every so often I reread something I wrote two years ago and wince. Here are five confident opinions from the site's history that I no longer hold — on posting schedules, social platforms, search, what counts as entertainment, and why I was wrong about wanting a bigger audience.