What is a Cookie?

Cookies are files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to the device you use when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies do lots of different and useful jobs, such as remembering your preferences, and generally improving your online experience.

There are different types of cookies. They all work in the same way, but have minor differences:

Session cookies

Session cookies last only for the duration of your visit and are deleted when you close your browser. These facilitate various tasks such as allowing a website to identify that a user of a particular device is navigating from page to page, supporting website security or basic functionality.

We use one session cookie to assist in the functionality of the site, but it contains no personal indentifying information. The name of this cookie is OVALTWO.

Persistent cookies

Persistent cookies last after you have closed your browser, and allow a website to remember your actions and preferences. Sometimes persistent cookies are used by websites to provide targeted advertising based upon the browsing history of the device.

We do not use a persistant cookie.

First and third party cookies

Whether a cookie is a first or third party cookie depends on which website the cookie comes from. First party cookies are those set by or on behalf of the website visited. All other cookies are third party cookies. We use both first party and third party cookies.

Cookies we use

OVALTWO
This is a simple session cookie that contains no personal identifying information and is an essential cookie for using this site as it stores any preferences you set whilst using the site.

_utma
The _utma cookie is part of Google analytics, and is primarily used to track visits to any site which uses Google analytics. _utma stores the number of visits made from your device, the time of the first visit, the previous visit, and the current visit. This cookie does not contain any personal information other than the IP address of your device. This is a third party cookie.

_utmb
The _utmb cookie is part of Google analytics. __utmb and __utmc are used to check approximately how long you stay on any site which uses Google analytics: when a visit starts, and approximately ends. This cookie does not contain any personal information other than the IP address of your device. This is a third party cookie.

_utmc
The _utmc cookie is part of Google analytics. __utmb and __utmc are used to check approximately how long you stay on any site which uses Google analytics: when a visit starts, and approximately ends. This cookie does not contain any personal information other than the IP address of your device. This is a third party cookie.

_utmv
The _utmv cookie is part of Google analytics. It contains no specific customer data other than the IP address of your device, but is used to record Custom variables for segmentation. This is a third party cookie. 

What if I don't want to accept cookies?

If you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by any website - including cookies set by this site, you should do this through the web browser settings for each web browser you use, on each device you use to access the Internet.

You can allow cookies from specific websites by making them "trusted websites" in your web browser.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.allaboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wider variety of browsers.