About Cookies
Cookies and how they Benefit You
Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer, tablet, smart or mobile phone when you browse websites.
Website cookies help in some or all of the following ways:
- Make our website work as you’d expect
- Improve the speed/security of the site
- Personalise our site to you to help you get what you need faster
- Continuously improve our website for you
- Save you having to login every time you visit the site
- Remember your settings during and between visits
- Make our marketing more efficient
We do not use cookies to:
- Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
- Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
- Pass data to advertising networks
- Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
- Pay sales commissions
You can learn more about all the cookies we use below
Granting us permission to use cookies
In-line with changes to EU privacy law (GDPR effective from 25th May 2018) we only use cookies that track your use of the website and store your personally identifiable data with your explicit consent. You can manage this at any time by clicking the small ‘C’ icon in the triangle at the bottom left of the website at any time.
Other cookies we use that do not track your data are necessary for the functioning of the website and are listed below. Should you wish to remove or not use these necessary cookies from our site you can learn how to do this below, however doing so will likely mean that our site will not work as you would expect.
More about our Necessary Cookies
Our own cookies
| Cookie Type | Cookie Name(s) | Details | More Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | wordpress_test_cookie | The cookie is used to check whether your web browser is set to allow, or reject cookies (it’s a session cookie). Expires on browser close | Learn more about WordPress cookies at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Cookies. |
| WordPress | comment_author_{HASH} comment_author_email_{HASH} comment_author_url_{HASH} |
When visitors comment on our blog, they get cookies stored on their computer (author name, author email & author website). This is purely a convenience, so that the visitor won’t need to retype all their information again when they want to leave another comment. The commenter cookies are set to expire a little under one year from the time they’re set. |
Learn more about WordPress cookies at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Cookies. |
| WordPress | wordpress_[hash] | On login WordPress uses this cookie to store your authentication details. Its use is limited to the admin console area, /wp-admin/ | Learn more about WordPress cookies at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Cookies. |
| WordPress | wordpress_logged_in_[hash] | After login, WordPress sets this cookie, which indicates when you’re logged in, and who you are, for most interface use. | Learn more about WordPress cookies at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Cookies. |
| WordPress | wp-settings-{time}-[UID] | WordPress also sets a few settings cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface use. | Learn more about WordPress cookies at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Cookies. |
*Some or all of these cookie names may be set. Cookie names are occasionally dynamically changed and may not be updated here.
We use cookies to make our website work that may include: –
- Determining if you are logged in or not
- Remembering your search settings
- Showing you which pages you have recently visited
- Allowing you to add comments to our site
- Tailoring content to your needs
There is no way to prevent these cookies being set other than to not use our site or turning all cookies off in your browser settings (see below).
Necessary Third Party Cookies
Third party functions
Our site, like most websites, includes functionality provided by third parties. A common example is an embedded YouTube video. Our site includes the following which use cookies:
| Cookie Type | Cookie Name(s) | Details | More Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube / Google | SID, LOGIN_INFO, use_hotbox, PREF, SSID, HSID, watched_video_id_list, __utma, __utmz, demographics, VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | These cookies are created when you play a YouTube video that is embeded on a web page. If you open a webpage that has a YouTube video embeded on it but do not play the video then the cookie may not be created. They used to allow the embeded YouTube video to work. | Learn more about YouTube / Google cookies here – YouTube / Google Privacy Policy. |
| Vimeo | __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmv, __utmz, last_page, embed_preferences, has_logged_in, stats_start_date, stats_end_date, CAL, GAPS, N_T, S_adsense, adsenseReferralSourceId, adsenseReferralSubId, adsenseReferralUrl, adsenseReferralUrlQuery, APISID, HSID, NID, PREF, SAPISID, SID, SNID, SSID | Vimeo sets a number of cookies on any page that embeds a Vimeo video. While we have no control over these cookies, they appear to include a mixture of pieces of information to measure the number and behaviour of Vimeo viewers, to hold information about current viewing video settings as well as a personal identification token, if you are logged into Vimeo. Furthermore, a set of cookies regarding Google Adsense advertising campaigns might be set, which contain identifiers that record user browsing behaviour. There are some cookies that expire 10 years after first viewing a Vimeo video while most of them expire between a few days for up to two years after the last viewing of a Vimeo video. | Learn more about Vimeo cookies here – Vimeo Cookie Policy. |
| Google Maps | SID, SAPISID, APISID, SSID, HSID, NID, PREF | Various unique identifiers, except for PREF which stores your options such as preferred zoom level. Google set a number of cookies on any page that includes a Google Map. While we have no control over the cookies set by Google, they appear to include a mixture of pieces of information to measure the number and behaviour of Google Maps users. Most of the cookies expire 10 years after your last visit to a page containing a Google Map. | Learn more about Google cookies here – Google’s Privacy Policy. |
*Some or all of these cookie names may be set. Cookie names are occasionally dynamically changed and may not be updated here.
Disabling these cookies will likely break the functions offered by these third parties.
Opt-In Cookies
Visitor Statistics & Marketing Cookies
We use cookies to compile visitor statistics such as how many people have visited our website, what type of technology they are using, how long they spend on the site, what page they look at etc. This helps us to continuously improve our website. These visitor statistic / analytics cookies will not collect any personally identifiable data from you, and so are switched on as default, however you can switch them off at any time by clicking the small blue triangle icon at the bottom left of the website.
| Cookie Type | Details | More Information |
|---|---|---|
| These cookies, placed by Google, are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. These cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. These cookies do not collect any personally identifiable information. The longest lasting cookie expires 2 years after your last visit to the website. Others are deleted 6 months, 30 minutes and 1 minute after you close your browser. | Learn more about Google Analytics cookies at Google’s Privacy Policy. | |
| These cookies are placed by Facebook, enabling us to measure, optimise and build audiences for advertising campaigns served on Facebook. In particular they enables us to see how our users move between devices when accessing our web site and Facebook, and ensure that our Facebook advertising is relevant to the interests of and is seen by our users. | For further information please see The Facebook Pixel page. |
Turning Cookies Off
If you wish to switch off all your cookies you can do so by adjusting your browser settings to stop it from accepting cookies (follow the links here to see how to do this with some of the more common browsers – Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer). Doing so however will likely limit the functionality of our’s and a large proportion of the world’s websites as cookies are a standard part of most modern websites.
If you wish to JUST switch off the ‘unnecessary’ cookies then you can do so by clicking the small ‘C’ icon in the triangle at the bottom left of the website and adjusting the settings.
