Cookie policy
What we store on your device, which of it you can refuse, and what refusing actually changes.
Last updated 3 September 2026
1. What a cookie is
A cookie is a small file a site stores on your device and reads back on your next request. Some are necessary for a site to work at all, because the web itself does not remember who you are between one page and the next. Others exist to measure or to track, and those are the ones worth a choice.
This page also covers local storage, which is a different mechanism with the same practical effect: data kept in your browser between visits.
2. What we set today
At present this site sets essential cookies only. There is no analytics, no advertising and no third-party tracking on it, so there is currently nothing to consent to and no banner asking you to.
That will change when we introduce analytics, and when it does the rule is fixed in advance: nothing beyond essential storage is set before you choose, analytics is not loaded until you accept it rather than loaded and told to ignore you, and declining is one action rather than a path through a settings panel. Withdrawing consent will be as easy as giving it.
This section describes the site as it is, not as it is planned. If you are reading it and seeing a cookie banner, this page is out of date and we would like to know.
3. Essential storage
These cannot be switched off, because switching them off breaks the thing you asked for.
- Session
- Keeps you signed in between pages and lets your membership be recognised. Without it, signing in does nothing.
- Theme
- Remembers whether you chose the light or the dark appearance. Stored so the page renders correctly on the server before it reaches you, which is what stops the site flashing white before turning dark.
- Consent record
- Remembers the cookie choice you made, so we do not ask again on every visit. Refusing this one is not possible, because it is the record of your refusal.
- Security
- Short-lived tokens that protect forms against cross-site request forgery.
4. Analytics
None currently runs. When we add aggregate analytics it will be to understand which pieces are read, how people arrive and where they give up, and it will sit behind the consent described above.
What it will not do is fixed. It will not be connected to your account, combined with your reading history, or used to target anything at you. There is no advertising on this site for it to serve, which removes the usual reason such data gets joined up.
5. Preferences
Small conveniences kept in your browser rather than on our servers: a dismissed banner, a collapsed section, an unsent comment draft. They never leave your device and they are not readable by us.
6. Third parties
We embed very little from other sites, and every embed is a deliberate editorial decision rather than a default. Where a piece includes a video or a social post, that provider may set its own cookies when the embed loads, under its own policy rather than ours.
We do not carry advertising, advertising networks or third-party trackers, so the usual population of cookies that arrives with them is simply absent.
7. Changing your choice
While the site sets only essential cookies there is nothing to change, and no settings panel is shown rather than one that does nothing. You can clear or block cookies in your browser at any time, which works on any site and is worth knowing how to do. When analytics arrives, a settings link will appear in the footer.
If you block essential cookies you will not be able to sign in, and your theme choice will not persist. That is a consequence rather than a penalty: those cookies are how those features work.
8. Changes and questions
If we add a cookie in a new category we will ask again rather than assume your previous answer covers it. The date at the top of this page is the date of the current version. Questions go through the contact page.