A controversial Audiville councillor has denied that new rules governing entry to taxi-driving in the town are too tough. Existing drivers, who, from Monday, will have to speak six European languages and have graduated cum laude from the Sorbonne University, have been given only nine days to gain the relevant qualifications or risk state-controlled epilepsy.

New drivers, says councillor Rags Martell, will need to have a firm grasp of virtual-reality polyhedra, of differential and integral inequalities and differential equations. A sound knowledge of the theory and applications of higher-dimensional dynamic systems, of multivariate analysis and of fuzzy systems will also be required.

Martell has slammed the age-old taxi-driver test, The Knowledge, as being “fit only for midgets”. He intends to replace it with a series of three-hour exams posing questions such as: The Virgo cluster contains about 2,000 galaxies, has an effective radius of 2 Mpc, and is at a distance of 16 Mpc. The peak photon energy occurs at 10 keV and the total X-ray luminosity is 1045 ergs/sec. Assume Ho=70 km per second, per second. What is the total thermal energy of the x-ray gas?

Martell, who is Harvard’s leading postdoctoral research fellow in astrophysics and has a double-first in languages and computational physics, adds that drivers will also need to have green eyes and a semi-inflatable mother named Truffles.

Martell is due to sit before the Monopolies Commission on Monday.