Welcome to the second post in our new ‘The week that was…’ series. Last week, besides the riots, we witnessed Sesame Street’s makers break 7,000 hearts by refusing to marry Ernie and Bert and also talked about a genius woman techie of the 1960s.

We know what’s been occupying everybody this week – the UK riots. Numerous articles have been penned over the week trying to understand what caused these riots in the first place. Some have been quick to dismiss them as mere hooliganism and criminality while others have been digging deeper and pointing their fingers at the growing socio-economic disparity in the country.

Darcus Howe, a West Indian writer and broadcaster, spoke to the BBC about the riots that he called ‘insurrection of the masses’ and, in the discussion, mentioned that his grandson has been searched so many times that he has lost count.

Meanwhile, over at our sister blog – British Politics and Policy at LSE – LSE academics have been expressing their view of the riots.

If all the riot talk is making you dizzy, take some time off to listen to this incredicle soundtrack with music effects by Daphne Oram – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI. Daphne Oram was mentioned in the Guardian last week as an ‘unlikely tech pioneer’. After all, there weren’t that many women creating new sound techniques and inventing instruments and machines in the 1960s.

In fact, as Kelly Dern, an LSE postgraduate, writes in the Huffington Post UK women entrepreneurs still continue to hit the glass ceiling in the technology industry.

Last week, I was also alerted to an e-petition calling for equal marriage rights regardless of gender or sexual orientation in the UK. Currently, in the UK, same-sex partners can enter civil partnerships but not ‘marry’. New York passed a law to allow same-sex marriage only recently.