Cookies
The small files this site stores on your device, what each one is for — and why there is nothing here for you to opt out of.
What we use cookies for
Two things: keeping you signed in, and keeping our forms secure. That is the whole list.
We do not use cookies to build a profile of you, to follow you to other websites, or to advertise to you. We do not sell anything about you to anyone.
Cookies this site sets
Every cookie below is strictly necessary — the site cannot do what you asked it to do without them.
| Name | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|
| next-auth.session-token | Keeps you signed in as you move between pages. | Until you sign out, or 30 days. |
| next-auth.csrf-token | Protects the sign-in and account forms from being submitted by another site on your behalf. | Until you close your browser. |
| next-auth.callback-url | Remembers which page you were on so we can return you there after you sign in. | Until you close your browser. |
On the live site these names carry a prefix that browsers require for cookies sent only over HTTPS. You will see __Secure-next-auth.session-token and __Secure-next-auth.callback-url, and — because a CSRF token gets a stricter rule still — __Host-next-auth.csrf-token. Those are the same three cookies listed above.
How we count visits
We are not counting visits yet. We have not chosen the software we will use, and nothing is measuring your visit today.
When we do switch it on, it will store nothing on your device — no cookie, and nothing in your browser’s storage.
Counting will happen on our own server. It will handle your IP address for a moment when you load a page, to work out your approximate country and to tell one visit apart from another on the same day. An IP address is personal information, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we can tell you is that it will not be kept alongside a record of the pages you viewed, it will never be used to build a profile of you, and it will never follow you to another website.
Those are the commitments we are making for when we turn it on, and our privacy policy sets them out in full. When we choose the software, we will name it here.
There is nothing to opt out of
You will not see a cookie banner on this site, and there is no preferences panel. That is deliberate, and it is not an oversight. If we ever add something that genuinely needs your permission, we will ask you first.
We set no advertising cookies, we do not track you across other websites, and we store nothing on your device that would need your permission. Anything this site does set is in the table above.
Every cookie listed there is required for the site to work at all, which means there is no choice for us to ask you to make — so we do not interrupt you to ask it.
One thing we would rather tell you than have you find: our contact, password-reset and newsletter forms are built to use Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that you are a person rather than an automated program. It is not switched on yet. When it is, it will load on those three forms and nowhere else — never on an article — and Cloudflare will receive your IP address and browser details for the check. We chose it over the common alternative because it does not profile you for advertising. If it turns out to store anything on your device, it will be added to the table above.
More detail
Our privacy policy explains everything else we hold about you, why, and for how long.