Cookie policy

This page explains what we store on your device, why, and what you get a say over. It sits alongside the privacy policy, which covers what we do with personal data more broadly.

What a cookie is

A small file a website asks your browser to keep, and sends back on your next request. It is how a site remembers that the basket is yours. The same rules apply to anything that behaves like a cookie (local storage, pixels, device fingerprinting), and we treat them all the same way here.

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations we may only set cookies that are strictly necessary without asking you. Everything else needs your consent first, and consent means an active choice, not a pre-ticked box and not carrying on scrolling.

1. Strictly necessary cookies

These make the site work. They are set without consent because without them there is no shop. You cannot turn them off here; you can block them in your browser, but the basket and checkout will stop working.

Cookie	What it does	How long
woocommerce_cart_hash	Tells the site the basket has changed so it shows the right contents	Session
woocommerce_items_in_cart	Whether there is anything in your basket	Session
wp_woocommerce_session_*	Links your browser to your basket and order details on our server	2 days
wordpress_logged_in_*	Keeps you signed in to your account	Session, or 14 days if you chose to stay signed in
wp-settings-*	Remembers display preferences for signed-in users	1 year
wordpress_test_cookie	Checks whether your browser accepts cookies at all	Session
Consent record	Remembers the cookie choice you made, so we stop asking	Up to 6 months

Your payment provider may also set a strictly necessary cookie during checkout for fraud prevention.

2. Analytics cookies

These tell us which articles get read, where people give up, and whether the checkout works. They are useful to us; they are not necessary to you. They only run if you agree.

3. Advertising cookies

Display advertising pays for the articles. Once ad partners are live, they may set cookies to choose which advert to show, to cap how often you see it, and to measure whether it worked, including personalised advertising based on what you have looked at elsewhere.

No advertising or analytics cookie will be set before you have consented to it. We are stating that as a commitment, not an aspiration: the consent banner has to actually block the ad and analytics tags until you choose, rather than fire them and ask afterwards. If it cannot do that, the adverts do not go live.

If you decline, you still get the site and you still get adverts. They are just not chosen using your browsing history.

Some pages carry no advertising at all

Crisis passages, sections that tell you to see a professional, our most sensitive articles, and every shop, basket, checkout and account page are advertising-free by design. No ad tags load there, so no advertising cookies are set there, whatever you have consented to.

Affiliate links

Where an article links to a retailer and we earn a commission, that retailer may set a cookie on its own site to record that you arrived from us. That happens on their site under their policy, after you click. We say so beside the link, not just in the footer. Nothing is set on our side by an affiliate link, and no affiliate links are live yet.

Changing your mind

• You can change or withdraw your consent at any time, and it should be as easy to refuse as to accept.
• Every browser lets you block or delete cookies in its settings, and offers a private window that discards them when you close it.
• Blocking strictly necessary cookies will break the basket and checkout. Blocking the rest will not.

Changes to this policy

When we add a tool that sets cookies, this page gets updated before the tool goes live, not after. If the change is material we will ask for your consent again.

Last updated: 25 August 2026