Spotify has released its annual holiday present to subscribers – Wrapped, personalised compilations of most-played tracks and listening insights for each user.

Wrapped is a "brilliant idea", said James Colley in The Guardian. "What do we love more than proof we're all individual, beautiful butterflies who think and feel more deeply than anyone else on the bus?". But this year "the whole experience felt more like getting socks for Christmas", said Maya Georgi in Rolling Stone, amid complaints that Spotify's increased use of AI has resulted in repetitive and reductive recommendations for users.

'Impersonal and detached'
Wrapped has become a much-anticipated annual tradition for Spotify users, with most-listened-to lists shared across social media, in another manifestation of "our cultural obsession with self-discovery", said Kofi Mframa in USA Today. "It's sort of like astrology for our ears."

This year's Unwrapped features AI-generated podcasts, created with Google's NotebookLM software, that delve into each user's listening habits. Other new AI-powered features on Spotify range from an artificial DJ to "Daylists" generated three times each day. So much automated curation creates "echo chambers that feed and refeed the same artists, songs, genres and overall 'vibes'," said Mframa. "At what point does hyper-personalisation become incredibly impersonal and detached?"

The concept of Spotify Wrapped changes how we listen, too, said Colley in The Guardian. "Suddenly, you're aware you're being monitored. That everything you listen to in March will be on the final exam in December."

'Failed to be cool'
As well as complaints about the increasing use of AI and predictable algorithms, some subscribers have bemoaned the loss of highlights from last year's edition, such as the genre breakdown and the "Sound Town" feature, which assigned a city to each listener based on their history.

For others, Wrapped is an annual disappointment – but the app is not to blame. "The tragic news is that the results have dropped and for another year I have failed to become cool," said Colley. "Ah well, I'll try again next year."

The government is being urged to take action to bolster the London Stock Exchange as the UK's stock market shrinks at the "fastest pace in more than a decade", said Bloomberg. Around 45 companies have delisted "due to mergers and acquisitions" so far this year, the highest number of losses since 2010.

What is happening?
The decline of the London Stock Exchange has been "under way for a while", said The Economist, but the "pace of exits has been accelerating". Just Eat, TUI, and Flutter (owner of Paddy Power and Betfair) are among a long list of major firms that have pulled out of the City this year, and there are rumours that the likes of Shell and Unilever could follow suit. There are fewer newcomers to replace them – only 23 last year, compared with the "peak of 136 in 2014".

UK investment managers are also putting far less of their pension funds into the London Stock Exchange. Such investments have fallen from more than 40% three decades ago to 4%, "well below the average of other countries", said the BBC.

Why are companies leaving?
Private equity takeovers are the cause of many immediate withdrawals, with rival takeovers by foreign firms also on the up. But some companies are simply withdrawing to find "higher valuations, a deeper pool of investors and proximity to important markets", said The Economist.

Some are "quitting for the US", said the BBC. Unlike its London counterpart, the New York Stock Exchange does not tax share sales, and that alone makes it "not rational" to choose the LSE over the US, Nikolay Storonsky, the head of UK banking start-up Revolut, told The Telegraph.

Can anything be done?
Keir Starmer's government hopes getting more capital back into the market will drive more investment. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is aiming to "consolidate sprawling local government pension schemes in a bid to unlock investment", said City A.M.

Starmer has also pushed for "authorities to cut red tape" to attract new investors. The Financial Conduct Authority this year set out what it called a "simplified listings regime" to try to streamline the floating process.

"'A Christmas Carol(ish)' resembles Charles Dickens's original tale in the same way ketchup resembles a tomato," said Andrew Houghton on The Reviews Hub. Comedian Nick Mohammed (of "Ted Lasso" fame) has great fun "spinning his version" of the classic Christmas story as his stand-up alter ego Mr Swallow, who, in turn, plays Scrooge and Santa.

"I wiped tears from my eyes on many occasions, as giggles erupted around the theatre," said Lily Middleton on Everything Theatre. It's a "deliciously funny" show, with an "intricate and clever set" that includes secret doors and conveyor belts to "add to the controlled chaos".

The "simplicity and moral power" of Dickens's story has all but vanished, as becomes "crashingly obvious" in the second half, when a "slapstick sketch about the Virgin Mary giving birth on the NHS" is followed by a "serenade to a turkey sung by Satan", said Tim Harding on Chortle. "No idea has been left on the table", but the script "hits way more often than it misses" and composer Oliver Birch has peppered the production with "great 'Wicked'-esque Broadway ballads".

Mohammed has created a "unique" show to which you could you take "both your broad-minded grandma and precocious teens", said Stephen Armstrong in The Telegraph. Despite its apparent randomness, the "carefully arranged script" doesn't waste a single line. In all, it's a "somehow perfect" production. "Arch, knowing, but ultimately sincere in the true panto tradition."

A Christmas Carol(ish) runs at @sohoplace until 31 December.

No one has realised just how bad Britain's immigration disaster is
Sam Ashworth-Hayes in The Telegraph
"An underlying and generally unspoken element of our national discussion on policy is the idea that we have at least some clue what we're talking about," writes Sam Ashworth-Hayes. But statistical errors in data relating to issues such as migration show that "increasingly, this no longer seems to be true". Good statistics are "a necessity for modern governments, not a luxury", because "states need to know what resources they have if they are going to exploit them".  

Trump has won the culture war
Vito Laterza and Louis Philippe Romer on Al Jazeera
It's "much easier to understand" what happened in the US presidential election "if one zooms out and considers the bigger picture", write academics Vito Laterza and Louis Philippe Romer. Donald Trump "won" a culture war, and the way to "wrestle US politics back from Trumpism" is to demand "far-reaching regulatory reforms of the social media space" and craft a "bold and wide-ranging vision for the future that is in radical contrast with Trumpism".

World war twee: the hideous triviality of our times
Gareth Roberts in The Spectator
We Brits appear to have "entirely lost" our "aversion to glutinous sentimentality", writes Gareth Roberts. It used to be that "British culture was calibrated so that there would always be a satirical edge to any sentiment", but now "slush and syrup and cutesiness" run rampant and we are "bombarded by twee". I suspect social media is to blame: "in a crowded market where everyone is shouting for attention, the simplest and tritest human responses wins".