Do you keep your headphones on at the checkout? Or chat people up then never follow through? You need our expert guide to the new social faux pas – and how to avoid them

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Nigel Farage has billed his byelection as a clash with the powers that be. To wit: Laurence Fox, a naked celebrity and a man with a bin on his head

Quick look at the Clacton byelection field as it stands: Nigel Farage, Count Binface, Piers Corbyn, Laurence Fox, some bloke who’s been on Married at First Sight and Dating Naked ... anyway, there’s more, but you get the picture. It’s going to be a long hot summer. By the end of this contest Clacton will be begging to be left behind again.

To recap, Reform leader Farage this week delivered an address to the nation on his political future, which can effectively be summarised as “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the messiest bitch of all?” Under fire over his recently exposed penchant for taking mental amounts of money and benefits from Thailand-based cryptophiliacs/convicted fraudsters and their mums, Nigel has decided to seek validation by asking the voters of Clacton to rule on him. So yes, Farage has triggered a byelection – but he’s also triggered anyone who’s ever been in a toxic relationship where their partner forces them into public declarations of loyalty. It’s all very “I always choose you over everyone, Nigel, and I hate that my family are trying to destroy us”.

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

His superpower has always been speaking his mind – and his majestic new BBC show aims to shatter our ideas about life itself. The presenter talks mass extinction, spiders who dream and why people get sick of him holding up rocks

It’s impossible to meet Chris Packham without getting into a good mood. This is largely down to his contagious enthusiasm for the natural world, but on this occasion may also be his canary yellow polo shirt and stand-up-as-if-electrocuted hair. His new five-parter, Evolution, tells the story of the single cell that is all living things’ first common ancestor. Known as Luca, it is the indivisible connection between you and your cat, me and an elephant. (That’s an acronym, not poetry, by the way – Last Universal Common Ancestor, the single-celled organism from 4.2bn years ago that branched into everything that now lives.) “There is still a physical connection between me and you, and a cell that existed billions of years ago,” he says. “I find that absolutely brilliant.”

The show seeks to shake up all our preconceptions: “We tend to stop at GCSE and are left with a legacy of thinking that evolution is laboriously slow, we are its be all and end all, and its story is over.” I mean, these aren’t all misconceptions – it is pretty slow, no? “There would have been billions of years when we just had cells floating in a broth in the sea,” he concedes. “We looked at it more as the turning points in evolution’s life, the periods when it moved very rapidly.” Evolution tells the story of different processes via specific animals. It explains breathing through the elephant, reproducing through the ostrich, eating through the bat, thinking through the dolphin, and running through the horse. “I don’t like to use the C word,” Packham says in the opener, watching a tree hyrax that is the improbably close genetic relative of the elephant, “but they are incredibly cute.”

Norwegian striker’s following keeps growing, more for the content he creates off the pitch than his scoring record

He is in the running for the Golden Boot, the trophy awarded to the World Cup’s top goalscorer. But Norway’s Erling Haaland has already earned one prize: the most viral player of the competition.

The striker went into the tournament with legions of fans in Norway and in Manchester – or at least in the blue half of the British city.

From welfare and defence spending to cost of living and geopolitics, we look at the key issues left over from Starmer

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham is expected to become prime minister in less than two weeks and has promised to significantly change Labour’s agenda and deliver improvements for all parts of the UK.

But he will arrive with a bulging in-tray of challenges and issues left over from Keir Starmer – from geopolitics to the cost of living. Here is what Burnham can expect to find behind the Downing Street black door.

The island was a shining light for Africa at this year’s tournament, but its modern relationship with continental solidarity and oneness is far more complex

After World Cup debutants Cabo Verde became the smallest country to reach the tournament’s knockout stages, coach Bubista was understandably emotional about his squad’s historic trajectory.

Before the round-of-32 match against the defending champions Argentina, with whom they went toe-to-toe until a goal deep into extra time consigned them to defeat, he spoke about inspiration and a sense of duty.

Body of former MP, 78, found with serious injuries at her Dartmoor home on Thursday morning

A man is being held on suspicion of the murder of the former MP Ann Widdecombe as political leaders across the spectrum express shock and horror at her alleged killing.

Widdecombe’s body was found with “serious injuries” by the ambulance service at her home in Haytor, Devon, at 11.40am on Thursday, Devon and Cornwall police said.

Interviews of Farage aide and his mother believed to be part of investigation into donations to Reform UK before 2024 election

Nigel Farage’s aide George Cottrell and his mother, Fiona Cottrell, have been interviewed under criminal caution by Scotland Yard detectives, the Guardian understands.

The interviews are understood to form part of an ongoing investigation into donations to Reform UK before the general election in July 2024.

• Defending champion triumphs 6-4, 6-4, 6-4

• Sinner will face Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s final

Novak Djokovic returned to Centre Court, one of the venues that has most defined his legendary career, desperately hoping that he had enough left in the tank to conjure up another miracle. His run to another grand slam semi-final at 39 years old was an immense achievement, but he wanted more. He always wants more. The question was whether his ageing legs would allow it against the best player in the world.

The answer to that question came swiftly and decisively. Jannik Sinner ensured that there would be no repeat of his defeat to Djokovic in their Australian Open semi-final at the beginning of the year, avenging that loss with a ruthless, efficient performance that moved him back into the Wimbledon final with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory. Sinner, the top seed, will face the second seed and recent French Open champion Alexander Zverev in the final after the German defeated Arthur Fery 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-4.

Twenty-three people missing and four Britons thought to be among those who died trying to flee Almería blaze

• ‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with wildfire

At least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almería as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.

The regional government of Andalucía said the victims, four of whom are believed to be British, had died while trying to escape the flames near the village of Bédar in the municipality of Los Gallardos.