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Hello and welcome to Spectator Outland, where each week we ask a few of our writers to read their piece from the magazine aloud.

I'm Max Jeffrey. On today's

episode, Damien Thompson reads his profile of Patriarch Kirill, the billionaire leader of

Russia's Orthodox Church. Jade McGlynn looks at the weird world of Russian state television.

Why do ordinary Russians believe it? And finally, Nick Newman asks, how should cartoonists respond to war?

First up, Damien Thompson.

Until very recently, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church,

was most famous of being the owner of a phantom wristwatch. It had the magical

property of disappearing from sight, visible to onlookers only as a reflection. Don't believe me?

Google Kirill and Watch, and you'll find a photo of the patriarch of Moscow and all Ruhrus meeting

the Russian Justice Minister. It was taken in 2009,

the year Kirill succeeded the late Patriarch Alexei II, a spiritual leader of 110 million

Russian Orthodox Christians. On his head, Kirill is wearing a white cuckulium, the so-called

helmet of salvation, with side-claps like the ears of a giant

basset hound. But his cassock is plain black and his wrist is bare. Only the polished table

reveals the glimmer of his phantom wristwatch, a £20,000 Swiss burghai.

With that sort of price tag, you'd have thought the Russian orthodox could afford a better

class of photoshopper. At any rate, the humiliated patriarch through a fit. There will be a

thorough investigation to determine why, in this instance, there was a crude violation of our

eternal ethical code against digital manipulation, said his spokesman, the guilty ones

will be punished severely. We can be sure that promise was kept. You don't mess with Kirill,

...