I have to say, I thought it would be a lot harder to find a modern-day practicing witch in London.

But all it took was a google search, a phone call and a 5 minute walk from the office to find Christina Oakley Harrington. She is a practicing Wiccan – a believer in pagan rituals and modern witchcraft.

Her bookstore, Treadwell's, is a warm and homey place tucked into a small street in London's Covent Carden. There are little vials and packets of herbs, multi-colored candles and the odd 19th century mixing bowl and engraved Celtic sword. And lots and lots of books. Spellbooks, Grimoires, tomes on Jewish Mysticism, the Occult, Alchemy, you name it.

My cameraman thumbs through a book of voodoo and finds a step-by-step guide to silencing that annoying guy on the bus who thinks the whole world wants to hear his phone conversation. Pins in a wax doll's ears will do it, apparently.

It turns out Christina is a really nice witch. She happily agrees to an interview and tolerates my faltering questions about what a Wiccan does exactly.

Answer: Folkloric nature worship and the occasional mixing of herbs and casting of spells – for good causes only, of course. And she doesn't seem the least bit offended when I ask if she can twitch her nose like Samantha on Bewitched.

Since she's also an academic expert in medieval witchcraft, we talk about a new petition submitted to the British Ministry of Justice demanding a pardon for the hundreds killed for practicing witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries. An estimated 40,000 witches were executed across Europe.

What makes the petition puzzling is that it's being submitted by Angel's Fancy Dress Shop in downtown London. Angel's claims to be the largest costumer in the world and has an Oscar statuette for extra credit. It sells about 9,000 witch costumes a year.

But this Halloween, Angel,s has decided to rehabilitate the image of the witch at www.pardonthewitches.com.

They are urging customers to sign the petition and demand a royal pardon for accused witches.

Outside the Angel's Fancy Dress shop there are about 100 people queuing to get inside and buy costumes. Which I find astonishing in itself. But nobody seems to have an idea about medieval witches. Nobody cares, either. They just want to get a funny, frightening, sexy outfit to go out and party with this Friday Halloween night.

Fair enough.

We called the Ministry of Justice. But they didn't seem impressed. "We don't comment on individual cases," was the stiff reply from the press office.

"Frankly, I don't think a petition brought to the government by a fancy dress shop on Halloween stands any chance of being accepted," says Harrington.

Hmm. Publicity stunt, maybe? Not even a little magical spell casting is likely to get this petition approved.

The up side is I have now made the acquaintance of a really lovely witch and learned a little about pagan religions. And I've got a handy Voodoo guide for dealing with the next editor who assigns me a story like this on Halloween.

RICHMOND, Virginia – Is John McCain - aged 72 - too old to be U.S. president? Not according to his mother - 96 and still going strong.

Roberta McCain: Still going strong aged 96.

Roberta McCain, sprightly for her years and looking at least a decade younger, has been rolled out as the surprise weapon in the battle for Virginia, making 10 stops at campaign offices throughout the state in the last three days, rallying volunteers for the final push, posing for photos and providing living proof of her son's staying power.

"The age issue goes out of the window when they see his mother," says Paul Galanti, like McCain a former navy fighter pilot and Vietnamese prisoner of war who now chairs Veterans for McCain. "She's 96 years old and I think she's gorgeous. I don't think John McCain is gorgeous but he sure does have good genes."

Galanti is skeptical about polls showing Barack Obama with a big lead in Virginia – currently nine points according to the latest CNN Poll of Polls. "Senator Obama has a six-to-one advantage dollar-wise... he's young, he's hip - I wonder why he's not 20 points ahead."

With five days until election day, Republicans believe they are fighting back and that the gap between the candidates is narrowing. "People don't know Obama," says volunteer "Hanging" Chad Smith. "When they get in the polling booth there will be that hesitation and they will vote for what they know."

"You're not going to put my surname on the internet," another volunteer, Heather, warns me. She fears a Democratic victory on Tuesday would enable them to slash military budgets, putting Virginian defense industry jobs at risk and leaving Americans vulnerable to attack.

"When 9/11 happened the first thing that popped into my head was thank God Bush is in office... We haven't had any more attacks here but I know they're out there, plotting things. I know the economy has been bad this year but seven out of eight years isn't bad."

Galanti says he is confident that Republican-supporting veterans will come out in force Tuesday to back McCain. "Veterans are very influential in their communities. And you know every veteran influences five people. I think John's going to win Virginia and I don't think it's going to be that close."

Somewhere out back Roberta McCain is still posing for photos.

RICHMOND, Virginia – What do you do when you've smashed all records for fundraising in a presidential campaign? How about booking half an hour of eyeball-grabbing television real estate to hammer home your message across four major networks.

Barack Obama used his campaign’s financial clout to buy valuable TV airtime.

If dollar bills could vote, Barack Obama would already be a shoe-in for the White House. Obama has raised some $600 million during his presidential bid and spent around $230 million of that on television slots, ensuring near-saturation coverage that has blown John McCain's campaign off the airwaves in key states.

The convergence of television and politics is a peculiarly American phenomenon. Even after months of coast-to-coast campaigning, the closest most voters will get to meeting Barack Obama or John McCain will be in the commercial breaks during Oprah, Letterman or Monday Night Football.

Obama's 30-minute “infomercial” on Wednesday took this process to its logical conclusion, buying up prime time itself, rather than the gaps in between. On Wednesday even the fifth game of baseball's World Series was delayed while Obama made his extended pitch to voters, prompting Republican complaints that he was "putting politics before our national pastime."

Obama's spending blitz has been made possible by his decision to fund his presidential bid from private donations, allowing him to circumvent federal rules on campaign spending.

McCain, who as a senator - somewhat ironically - was responsible for steering legislation for tighter regulation of campaign financing through Congress, chose to accept federal funding. That has limited him to spending just $84 million - though his total war chest has been bolstered by sizeable contributions from the Republican National Committee.

McCain gets in the first blow Wednesday night with a 30-second slot featuring unsettling music over grainy images of masked and armed Islamic militants, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez that questions Obama's security credentials.

A pop-tarts commercial makes an unlikely buffer zone before fields of swaying corn and plaintive strings herald the opening sequence of Obamavision.

As a piece of campaign propaganda, it's an elegant, soft-focused attempt to segue Obama's political ambitions with his personal life story. He talks directly and plaintively into the camera, telling us of the lasting impression left on him by his absent father and of his mother's death from cancer amid a flurry of insurance documents. “I know what it is like to see someone suffer because of a broken healthcare system,” he says.

Threaded through this are the life stories of those for whom the American dream has become a paradise lost: the family struggling to meet their mortgage payments; the man who worked for 30 years on the railroads and built his own home but has to work in Wal-Mart aged 72 to pay his medical bills; the widow with two children working two jobs to get by.

Democratic colleagues pay tribute to Obama's “once in a lifetime” leadership credentials. It's visionary and impressionist in tone with little red meat for his opponents - already hammering him for being soft on foreign policy and for his supposedly redistributive agenda – to sink their teeth into.

Obama concludes with a pledge to restore the American dream “for men and women in every state across this nation” and ends on a note of humility: “I'm reminded every single day that I am not a perfect man. I will not be a perfect president.”

Will it win Obama any extra votes next Tuesday? Possibly - though perhaps not among rightwing baseball fans.

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia – Love her or hate her, there is no denying that Sarah Palin knows how to work a crowd.

Despite a faltering campaign Sarah Palin continues to draw the crowds.

How many other politicians could draw an audience of thousands on a cold October morning, keep them waiting for hours and then work them into a frenzy though a driving downpour that tests the construction of Palin's now trademark "updo" and leaves her staring out at the crowd through rain-smeared glasses?

Palin's political rise resembles the plot of an unbelievably corny Sandra Bullock movie. The high school beauty queen who grows up to run a small town, then a backwater state and then finds herself propelled unexpectedly into the race for the White House.

Taking the stage to the strains of Dolly Parton singing "Nine to Five," Palin delivers an assured performance that touches all the buttons with her fan base. Mentioning Joe the Plumber, she triggers something approaching a frenzied reimagining of "Spartacus" - "I'm Joe the Plumber!" they shout. "You betcha!" she retorts.

"She represents the silent majority America," one woman tells me. Republican women see aspects of their own lives mirrored in hers. Republican men just seem to like the idea of a woman who can handle a hunting rifle. "I like her views on guns and abortion," one says.

But there is a surreal air to the gathering too. Polls suggests this is an election the Republicans are in danger of losing badly. "Even the weather's gonna vote Obama," jokes somebody in the press area, sheltering from the rain under a McCain-Palin 2008 banner.

Many believe Palin's nomination was where it all started to go badly wrong for the McCain campaign and one of the reasons why he is so far off the pace in traditionally safe Republican states such as Virginia and North Carolina.

Yet while Palin may have played spectacularly badly with Democrat-leaning swing voters and to an international audience uncomfortable with her affected small worldliness, there is little doubt that the Republican right has taken her to its heart like no politician since George W. Bush.

In small town America, even here less than an hour from suburban Washington D.C., Palin makes perfect sense. McCain has created a phenomenon which he can no longer control. Many betray their true feelings about next week's election when they tell me they hope she will run for president herself next time around. Watch out for "Palin '12" bumper stickers coming soon.

The crowd is almost entirely white, unfailingly friendly, comfortable in their opinions and occasionally a little too unguarded in expressing their dislike of Barack Obama.

But not everyone is pleased to see me. "I don't give anything to CNN," says one Vietnam veteran in full military uniform as I approach him for a quote. "I only speak to Fox News."

It's the first time I've seen a lap of honor before the game has even started - and the crowd loved it.

As the Palestinian football team kissed the ground of their new stadium before their match against Jordan, I looked around and saw grown men with tears in their eyes. Only a Palestinian can understand what it means to have their team play their first ever match on home soil. This was national pride at its purest.

As for the football itself, it started a little late (what doesn't in the Middle East?), and my football expert producer tells me it was a great start for Palestine and a goal from the captain, but petered off towards the 1-1 draw.
 
But the most important part is the fact the 6,000-seat stadium was jam-packed. Every rooftop around the stadium was full for those without tickets, and I sat in-between a passionate football fan with his 2-year-old daughter desperately trying to sleep on his shoulder, and a raucous band with a drum player who didn't stop for 90 minutes.  The atmosphere was incredible.

It's rare to be able to report on something so joyful in the Palestinian territories.  Sport succeeded tonight where politics has often failed.

The war of the signs, symbolizing the heated times in election-gripped America.

I imagine the makers of those signs lined up at the polling stations, waiting up to four hours to cast their vote early. They want to make sure their vote counts. With two wars and a grave economic mess threatening jobs, the future of a nation is at stake.

Some Americans are still upset about the 2000 election when Democrat Al Gore lost to George W. Bush, mainly because of the results in Florida. After the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount in the state, Bush was certified as the winner of Florida by a razor-thin margin of 537 votes! America learned then that "chad" was not just a name, it was the tiny piece of paper that a punch hole creates, which determined whether your vote counts.

Ironically, the ballot fixes made since that election are creating new problems in the 2008 election. Some of the new machines are not working right, some poll workers are not well-enough trained to handle them. How are they going to cope with an unprecedented number of voters expected to show up on election day?

People are confused and doubts are building. The number of Americans who trust their vote will count in this election has dropped by double digits from the last election in 2004. Only 58% believe their vote will be cast and counted properly, down from 72% in 2004.

And the lack of trust could be a problem. Democratic supporters could refuse to accept a loss. They expect an Obama win, given his lead in the polls.

But the polls could be wrong.

It's happened before ...

They call it the Bradley effect, named after the popular Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley after he ran for California Governor in 1982. Some polls showed the African American mayor ahead of his Republican challenger by 9 points but he still lost the election by a little more than one percentage point. Why were the polls wrong? Some election watchers say it was because many voters don't tell the truth when pollsters ask if race is a factor in their vote.

That's the Bradley effect, 26 years ago. Polling has improved vastly since then; many analysts also believe the U.S. has come a long way on the question of race.

Still, more than a quarter of a century later, the U.S. will be choosing between a Republican with decades of experience in foreign policy, and a man who could become its first African American President.

What will the Obama effect be?

We'll soon find out.

I recently had the extraordinary opportunity to sit down face-to-face with three of the Bali bombers and ask them anything I liked. Since our interview, the Indonesian government has announced that their execution will take place at the beginning of November.

I have already had a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, about the interviews. A colleague who knew some of those killed in the attack felt the families would have been pleased that finally someone challenged the bombers' rationale and twisted logic. Some of the families of victims we interviewed also said they were pleased that at least someone had asked the questions they'd never had the chance to pose.

But you can't please all of the people all of the time. One viewer e-mailed me describing the interviews as irresponsible and sensationalist. I thought long and hard about whether we should be giving these men any publicity and I certainly understand those who think they should not be given the opportunity to speak. But on reflection, I honestly believe we have a duty to confront these men and counter their ideology - not least on behalf of the vast majority of Muslims who feel their religion has been hijacked by extremists.

For me one survivor, Chusnul Chotimah, summed it up. She received 60 percent burns on her body from the bomb these men planted. She's an Indonesian Muslim and says it is the bombers, not the Westerners they targeted, who are the infidels. She is incredibly grateful that we were able to show them for what they really are - they are not Islamic terrorists, they are simply criminals who have forfeited their right to call themselves Muslims.

HIMACHAL PRADESH, India - I'm not sure we'll make it. The one-lane, winding mountain road is riddled with landslides every few hundred feet. I am not afraid of heights but being smothered by mud and rocks is another matter.

Kundar Singh Pundir, left, and his brother Amar, right, share Indira Devi, centre, as their wife.

It is rainy season and driving up 6,000 feet to a remote village in north India's Himachal Pradesh state isn't a well-timed idea. We do it, anyway; news deadlines and type-A personalities have a way of driving you forward even when the situation is a bit precarious.

We are not alone. We are sharing the pot-holed roads with huge trucks filled with rocks from a nearby mine, buses filled with people and herds of goats that wander across the road.

After two hours of sickeningly bumpy, slippery terrain we stop. We are almost there. Yes!

We have to walk the rest of the way. We grab about 40 pounds worth of gear and drag it through the streets.

There is a member of a non-governmental organization with us who insists on carrying some of it; we accept. Usually my photographer insists on shouldering the load, but today his back is saved the 20-minute walk into the village.

The village of Dugana is located in a remote spot. It is precariously positioned on the side of a very steep hill range. There is no room for bicycles and even less for cars to carry people and things. These are two-person, not two-car lanes.

We finally make it. The view from here is stunningly beautiful. You can almost touch the clouds drifting by. The hills stretch out in front of you like something out of a travel guide.

As an outsider the homes seem peculiar and quaint at the same time; I have to get in one. They look like doll houses on stilts and are built with tiny windows just big enough for a human head.

The villagers pop their heads out as we walk by. We are strangers and an unusual sight. I can't help but stare back. I'm as interested in them as they are with me.

Now to why we made the eight-hour drive from Delhi: this village is still practising a very old tradition and we wanted do a story on it.

It won't be easy. No matter where we travel in India we draw crowds. It is not us, it is the camera. There is no such thing as a private interview in a village setting. In this case the subject matter is of a very private nature. Still we can't catch a break. People peer through the windows or circle around the camera to hear and see what is going on.

We begin while the crowd stares and listens.

Our subject? Polyandry: the practice of one woman marrying several husbands. It is custom here to marry several brothers (fraternal polyandry).

A woman is married to the eldest brother and if he has one or more younger brothers they too can join the family as a second, third or even fourth husband.

The family we visit is made up of two brothers, one wife and their three children.

We sit the two brothers down first. Eventually I have to ask an intrusive question. Everybody's thinking it but saying it out loud with an audience is a bit uncomfortable.

Out it comes: "How do the three of you manage sex?"

The teenage boys gathered nearby giggle.

I pretend I don't hear them, hoping our subjects answer without feeling embarrassed.

Turns out the teenage boys and I are the only ones embarrassed. The brothers, who share a wife, answer matter-of-factly: they work out a schedule. A simple answer to a prying question, I move on.

Their wife is busy and becoming increasingly annoyed because she has a lot of work to do. She works very, very hard. It's her job to cut grass in the fields, milk the cow, cook the meals and clean up.

She begins her day at 5 a.m. Everything is done by hand. There is no modern stove or electrical equipment to make life easier, but she obliges us and we thank her for her time.

We had to bring her inside their stilted house and sit against the door to keep the men out. It was the only way we could get her to talk about her life with two husbands.

The weather is changing rapidly. If it rains too hard we won't get down the hillside in time and the roads could get washed away. We begin our trek back down.

LONDON, England - Eighteen months ago, Daniel James was paralyzed from the chest down in a rugby training accident.  After living for more than a year with his disability, James made repeated appeals to his family to end his life.  Last month, his family consented to bring him to a clinic for assisted suicide in Switzerland.  He died on September 12.

Daniel James, who played rugby for England under-16s, was paralyzed during match practice last year.

Committing suicide is not against British law.  But assisting a suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.  When James' parents returned to England they were investigated by British police. There has been no decision about whether to prosecute yet.

Understandably, the James family does not wish to speak to the press.  They reached a painful and heartbreaking decision only to endure a police investigation.  Media attention is probably the last thing they want.  

So, in order to cover this story, we decided to interview several other people who could help us understand how and why Daniel James took his own life. 

First, we spoke to Debbie Purdy.  She is suffering from multiple sclerosis, cared for by her musician husband Omar Puente.  She is fighting in British court for the right to commit suicide with the help of her husband.

We drove several hours to reach Debbie and Omar at their home in northern England.  On the trip we talked about how we would approach the interview.  How could we discuss death and suicide as sensitively as possible?

I think we were apprehensive, at first, unsure of what to expect.  But as soon as Debbie opened the door we realized we should not have worried.

Debbie has a million watt smile and Omar has a booming laugh to match it.  They are a contagiously happy couple. 

Debbie explained that she did not want to die now.  But, in the event that her disease becomes so unbearable and intolerable, she does want to make plans for an assisted suicide with the help of her husband.  And she doesn't want him to go to jail for helping her. 

"I started using an electric wheelchair in February this year. Ten years ago, I was walking with a stick," she says.  "My independence won't be there for very long and I'm not prepared for him to face jail like the James family is doing at the moment."

Throughout the interview, Debbie holds Omar's hand. He helps her when her hands shake and she is unable to hold a glass of water.  She stumbles repeatedly over the word "deteriorating condition" and he listens to her patiently. 

Interestingly, Omar makes a point of saying there are some good things about her worsening condition.  Now that she needs to use an electric wheelchair to propel herself, Omar can walk next to her and hold her hand.  Also, he says, she doesn't have to crane her neck anymore to look behind and talk to her husband as he pushes her wheelchair.   It's the little things, he laughs.  And death is not something they dwell on.

"It's not a thing that you talk about every day", he says.  "At the beginning there was confusion.  But we talked and the bottom line is this is Debbie's decision.  It's Debbie.  Debbie is here in this wheelchair.  It's Debbie's decision and I'm with her."

We also interviewed Matt Hampson, a 23-year old former rugby player.  He suffered the same catastrophic injury that Daniel James did in rugby training: a dislocated spine that paralyzed him from the neck down. 

But unlike Daniel James, Matt has not only accepted his disability, he has embraced his new life.

"You know your life is different now. It's not over, it's different. And it's not any worse.  Some ways it's better," he explains.  

Matt needs 24-hour care.  He breathes through a ventilator and moves about using a wheelchair steered with his chin. 

Yet, Matt has a packed schedule of activities.  He writes a rugby commentary, interviewing over the phone.  He runs a rugby website dedicated - not just to the sport - but to his Special Effects charity for children with similar injuries.  And that's when he's not building his new house, writing his autobiography or coaching the local Rugby team.   

It's not easy.  Matt says he has plenty of gloomy days but they don't last. 

"I'm quite lucky because I'm not the sharpest tool in the box," he jokes, "Basically, I don't think about things too much.  I don't read into things.  I just try, I just try to look at life in a simplistic view and go out and do my own thing and not think about what people think and just get on with it really."

He tried to share that message with Daniel James before he died.  Matt refuses to pass judgment on the James family's decision. 

"At the end of the day, it was his decision."  Matt says, "Who am I to judge what he did?"

 We left both interviews feeling strangely uplifted.  The interviews were frank and funny even as we talked about pain and suffering.   In fact, what strikes me most about the interviews is not just how extraordinary Debbie, Omar and Matt are but how they manage to talk about their difficult lives with such grace and ease.  It felt like having a friendly chat over a cup of tea.  A reminder that sometimes just talking about the possibility of death is a good way to appreciate life.

Watch my report

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia – The way a country deals with the press says a great deal about the way it deals with its own people. I found a stark contrast between the attitudes of Cambodia and Thailand this week, while trying to cover the brief skirmish between the countries' two armies on a disputed patch of ground near a wonderfully remote and romantic ancient temple.

A Cambodian machinegunner stationed in the disputed border zone.

Preah Vihear is suffused with mystery and majesty in equal measure. Its vertiginous position and splendid isolation are beguiling. The problem is it also happens to be right on the Thai-Cambodia border. But it's not the collection of finely carved, quietly crumbling stones that is the subject of the wrangle; instead it's the strategically important, but far less impressive, patch of scrub next door.

I won't go into the history of this now, as practically every supposed fact is disputed - suffice to say it involves more than a century of claim and counter-claim.

Anyway, what was interesting was the way the Thai army had totally sealed off the border from their side, denying the press access. Checkpoints several kilometers away stopped reporters getting anywhere near to the site of the violence. Watch report on disputed Thai-Cambodia border

But luckily my crew and I had decided to take a chance on the Cambodian side. It involved flying to Siem Reap , driving right past Angkor Wat (for those who've never heard of it, think the movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider") and then basically going another six hours along mostly dirt roads until we reached the bottom of the cliff, where we changed our van for a powerful SUV, for the white-knuckle scramble to the top.

The Cambodian army couldn't have been more helpful. A taciturn general, sitting like a Khmer king in a tent in the middle of the jungle, solemnly pointed at the border as they saw it. He told us his troops didn't want a confrontation with the Thais, but claimed the Thai soldiers had fired first and had repeatedly crossed into their territory.

Around his camp, field guns and mortars had been set up. Many of his troops wore the traditional red Khmer scarf, as favored by the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge troops who'd used the Preah Vihear temple as their last bastion until 1998.

They gave us a guided tour of their positions. We talked to a machine gunner, dressed in a grubby vest, who insisted the Thais fired first and pointed to the pile of spent cartridges lying in the grass under his weapon. They'd been a fierce firefight for an hour and he claimed the Thais had fired rocket-propelled grenades at their positions, just yards from the temple itself.

We managed to talk to one Thai soldier who was reluctant to answer the question of who started the attack, but he again reiterated they didn't want to fight the Cambodian soldiers who they'd been living next to in a jungle camp for weeks.

Neither side is willing to pull back and yet both sides claim they don't want any further escalation. The Thai military seem very keen to keep the press away; the Cambodians seem keen to show reporters around.

Perhaps that's not significant and just a result of different media strategies. But I got the impression there was something else. It was as if the Cambodians felt they had nothing to hide, and the Thais were guiltily excluding the press in case too many awkward questions were asked.

Now before all our Thai readers go into spasms of anger, I am not making a judgment as to who fired first: this is merely an observation of how it felt on the ground. I'm sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation to the whole clash. My cameraman thinks that some soldier tripped on his flip-flop and accidentally fired his RPG. You know, it's such a ridiculous situation that actually wouldn't surprise me.

Both countries need to grow up, start acting responsibly and start thinking about their people, many of whom live in abject poverty, rather than resorting to the kind of petulant show-boating politics and chest-puffing nationalism which both sides should be ashamed of.