To paraphrase the great Ernest Hemingway, how did the Manchester City era end? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

Losing to their rivals from the red half of the city last weekend certainly appeared to fit the second of those two, with a 90th-minute winner from Amad Diallo continuing a "miserable run" of eight defeats in their last 11 games for Pep Guardiola's once imperious side, said The Independent.

"Where did it come from? Where does it end?," the newspaper asked. "Just when City thought they were out of crisis, they pulled themselves back in."

'Painful to watch'
Pep Guardiola is meant to be the "sorcerer from Santpedor", a coach deemed to "have the answer to every conundrum", said The Telegraph's Oliver Brown. But "for the first time in 16 years" of dominating football, he "looks bereft of answers".

"I thought Manchester City's good times would never end", said the i news site's Simon Kelner. But the team's recent mistakes have "catastrophic consequences", and the "particular version of stage fright or writer's block" we are now witnessing on the pitch is "painful to watch".

Somehow the club's latest loss to Manchester United "feels different", said Football365, as "rarely" have they been "made to look so amateurish". It is abundantly clear this issue "will not simply blow over and fix itself". Consequently, Guardiola's resignation is "more likely than a revival".

'New, unforgiving territory'
Although City are undoubtedly "worse than before", they "aren't as bad as they look", said Rob Draper in The Guardian. But because in the newspapers and the dressing room, "emotion trumps data", the confidence of a once-phlegmatic team is now in the doldrums.

Yes, this may be the "end of an era" for this particular iteration of the Manchester City squad, but it might not be the "end of the City epoch as a whole", said FourFourTwo.

After a "nightmarish conclusion" to a lengthening list of "stunning defeats", the remainder of the season will be Guardiola's moment of truth, said BBC Sport's Phil McNulty. While he will "have the finances" to rebuild, one eye must also be kept on his ever-advancing competitors. The club and the manager alike must now tread "new, unforgiving territory".

Apps designed to help keep children safe are being exploited by domestic abusers to secretly spy on their partners, experts are warning."Family-tracking" apps allow parents to monitor their child's location and control and limit their internet access and screen time, said Sky News, but the "booming market" has a darker side.

What is stalkerware?
A woman named only as Melody told Sky News that she became suspicious when her "coercive and controlling" ex-partner kept turning up at the same places as her, sometimes miles from they lived. After going to a phone repair shop, said the broadcaster, she learned that a hidden app called mSpy was "feeding everything" on her phone, including her location, to a remote dashboard, accessible to the person who had installed it. The app is just one example of "stalkerware" – software "covertly" installed on someone's phone so they can be "monitored remotely". These apps are usually marketed as parental control software, allowing the firms to "skirt laws" on covert surveillance.

What other tech is exploited by abusers?
Examples of technology that can be used for "tech-enabled abuse" include video doorbells, smart TVs and Amazon Alexas. In a recent survey of 2,000 UK women by Lifestyle Health Hub, 41% of UK women said that a partner or family member knew the password to their personal devices – and 28% of these women said they had not given the password willingly. Refuge said more than 70% of the women who accessed support from the domestic-violence charity had experienced tech-related abuse within a relationship.

How can you tell if someone is spying on your phone?
Signs that someone may be spying on your phone include "data usage increases, battery drain, overheating or unfamiliar apps", said Top10VPN. Whether you have an Android or iPhone, the "most effective option" to get rid of rogue apps is to do a factory reset, but that will also remove all your data and apps on the device, so back up your data first.

Hats off to English National Ballet for restoring some "festive sparkle" with its brand-new production of "The Nutcracker", said Debra Craine in The Times. Frankly, the previous version was a "dreary, dispiriting affair", despite filling theatres at Christmas for over a decade.

The revamped production is a huge improvement, agreed Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian. Artistic director Aaron S Watkin eschews gimmicks and doesn't attempt to reinterpret Tchaikovsky's ballet too drastically; instead he's collaborated with rising star choreographer, Arielle Smith, and "cracking" designer, Dick Bird, to really "make the stage zing".

Set in Edwardian London with the dome of St Paul's visible in the background, chimney sweeps and suffragettes fill the stage. Here, eccentric toymaker Drosselmeyer runs a sweet emporium ("very 'Willy Wonka'") and is "the person pulling all the strings".

Soon, we're transported to the Stahlbaums' "bougie" family home, said David Jays in London's Evening Standard. After their Christmas party "little Clara creeps downstairs" and begins dreaming of "magical" characters that reflect her waking world: her aunt is transformed into the Ice Queen, while her mother becomes the Sugar Plum Fairy. The latter is played by Emma Hawes whose footwork is like "delicate piping-bag tracery across the floor". "Time stands still when she appears."

In the second act, we're "treated" to a "parade of global delicacies" from children as "very cute" Liquorice Allsorts to Rentaro Nakaaki as a "spinning, leaping poppy seed Ukrainian roll", added Winship in The Guardian. "The whole thing feels familiar but fresh, colourful but still classy, sweet but not sickly. A solid success."

At London Coliseum until 12 January

Elon Musk believes Britain is in very deep trouble
Nigel Farage for The Telegraph
Elon Musk's "contribution to the scale of the Trump victory" is "not to be underestimated", writes Nigel Farage after meeting the billionaire, who "regards the mother country of the English-speaking world as being in very deep trouble". Musk described Labour and the Conservatives as "the uniparty", and "left us in no doubt that he is right behind us". Musk's backing of Reform means there's "trouble ahead" for the Labour government.

How will the Ukraine war end?
Bethany Elliott for the New Statesman
Volodymyr Zelenskyy "will no doubt find it strange" the "first day" he "sheds the wardrobe of war to prepare for peace", writes Bethany Elliott, but "that moment may be fast approaching" as Trump prepares to take office. Any deal is "likely to involve significant territorial concessions" and Kyiv has "expressed greater pragmatism behind closed doors". To sell this to a sceptical public, the president can "blame America" and employ "slick PR".

I'm from Singapore, British Christmas traditions are very, very weird
Zing Tsjeng for the i news site
In Britain, it's "considered the height of bonding" at Christmas to "lock your entire family in a house for days, marinate everyone in enough alcohol to give the NHS app heart palpitations" and then "let them loose on each other", writes Zing Tsjeng. There's "so much needless expectation around this period" but "if everyone collectively embraced the idea" that how we celebrate in Britain is "objectively strange and weird, maybe we can let ourselves off the hook".