It’s the most Christmassy chart of the year: squeezing regular repertoire ever tighter, Christmas-themed tracks occupy 43 places in the Top 75 this week, with Ed Sheeran & Elton John’s Merry Christmas in pole position for the second time albeit with a 17.31% reduction in consumption to 63,443 units.

But for ACR – which halves streaming points for catalogue except in rare cases - Merry Christmas would once again be in third place, behind Christmas Past ghosts Last Christmas by ...