The short version
This site sets no advertising cookies, no analytics cookies and no tracking cookies of any kind. There is no cross-site tracking, no advertising network, no fingerprinting and no behavioural profiling.
What the site does use is one entry in your browser's local storage, which records that you have dismissed the cookie notice so that it does not appear on every page. That entry never leaves your device.
The longer version below exists because "we don't really use cookies" is exactly the kind of claim that deserves to be shown in detail rather than asserted.
What cookies and local storage actually are
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to keep and send back on each subsequent request. Local storage and session storage are similar stores of key-and-value data, but they are never sent to the server automatically — a page has to read them with script and choose to do something with them.
The distinction matters here, because the only storage this site uses is of the second kind. Nothing is transmitted back to us when you load a page.
Storage of this sort is usually described in four categories:
- Strictly necessary — without it the site cannot do what you asked.
- Preference — remembers a choice you made, such as a dismissed banner.
- Statistics — counts visits and measures behaviour.
- Marketing — follows you between sites to target advertising.
This site uses one item in the second category and nothing at all in the third or fourth.
Exactly what this site stores
| Name | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
jl-cookies | Local storage | Records that the cookie notice has been dismissed, so it is not shown again. | Until you clear your browser storage |
That is the complete list. If your browser's developer tools show anything else originating from this domain, we would genuinely like to hear about it — it would mean something has gone wrong.
The code that writes this value is wrapped so that if your browser blocks storage — in a private window, for example, or with site data disabled — the page carries on working normally. The notice will simply reappear on your next visit.
Embedded video and what happens when you press play
Pages that offer video show a still image and a play button. Until you press that button, no connection is made to the video host and no player script loads. This is a deliberate design choice, not an accident.
When you do press play, the site loads a player from the host's privacy-enhanced domain
(youtube-nocookie.com). At that moment the host may set its own storage and will receive
your IP address, the address of the page you are on, and information about your device. That
interaction is governed by the host's privacy policy, not ours, and we have no access to whatever it
collects.
The still images used for the play buttons are served from the video host's image domain and are plain image requests, which reveal your IP address to that host in the same way that any image on the web does.
Fonts and images served from other domains
Two other categories of file are requested from third-party domains when a page loads:
- Web fonts. The typefaces are requested from a font CDN. Font files are static and set no cookies, but the request does reveal your IP address to that provider.
- Photographs. Several illustrative photographs are served from a stock-image CDN. The same applies: no cookies, but an ordinary image request that reveals your IP address.
Everything else — the stylesheet, all site scripts, and the artist photograph — is served from this domain. No analytics script, tag manager or advertising script is loaded from anywhere.
The mailing list
The newsletter is sent through an email delivery provider. Emails may contain a tracking pixel that records whether the message was opened, which is standard for such services and is used only to keep the list clean by removing addresses that have not engaged for a long time.
You can defeat this entirely by turning off automatic image loading in your email client, and doing so will never affect your subscription. Every message carries a one-click unsubscribe link that works immediately.
How to control storage yourself
You are not dependent on us for any of this. Every major browser lets you block or delete site data:
- Chrome — Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies, and Settings → Privacy and security → Delete browsing data.
- Firefox — Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data. Enhanced Tracking Protection is on by default and is worth leaving on.
- Safari — Settings → Privacy, including "Prevent cross-site tracking".
- Edge — Settings → Cookies and site permissions.
Blocking storage for this site costs you exactly one thing: the cookie notice will reappear each time you visit. Nothing else changes.
Most browsers also send a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal. We honour these by default, which is straightforward for us since there is nothing here to switch off.
Changes to this policy
If this site ever adds analytics, or anything else that stores data on your device, this page will be updated before that happens and the change will be announced in the newsletter. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.
Questions to [email protected]. See also the Privacy Policy for what happens to information you send us deliberately.
Questions about this document
Write to [email protected] or use the contact form. Questions about a specific order, licence or subscription are answered faster if you include the relevant reference.
This page is written in plain English and is intended to be read, not merely accepted. It is provided for information and does not constitute legal advice; where a matter is genuinely important to you, take advice from a qualified lawyer in your own jurisdiction.