There are family outings you can avoid: stuff like visiting your neighbour in hospital after he's had a massive pimple surgically removed, or even something as exciting and important as a car trip to the chemist to pick up Dad's long-term prescription for fungus cream. But in the family rule book, scribed in the blood of our ancestors, it clearly states that there are some journeys you must undertake. They are 100 per cent compulsory. No get-out-of-jail-free card can be handed over in exchange for an 'I'll just stay home thanks, Mum.' No, my friends. These are the car trips, bus rides, plane journeys, visits, overnight stays and holidays that you simply cannot possibly escape. These are the UFO's - Unavoidable Family Outings. The type of experiences that will be harder to bear than a month of detentions sitting next to the stinky kid.

Author Biography

Dave Hackett is the kind of guy who likes to draw sumo-wrestling grannies and guitar-wielding punk snails. His cartoons can be seen in newspapers, magazines, books, on posters, T-shirts and the sides of vans and garbage trucks throughout the nation. You can catch Dave regularly scribbling on Network Ten's Toasted Tv, Channel 7's It's Academic, and in each issue of PETS Magazine. Recently, Dave branched into literature with his debut novel, UFO; Unavoidable Family Outing, which he followed with UFO in the USA and UFO Afloat. The first book in his new SUCS: Seriously Useless Crime Stoppers series, Unstoppable Brainspin, was published in August 2010. Dave is the author of six interactive cartooning books, and two picture books, including his most recent release Hamilton's Handstand. You should check out all Dave's books. Dave, along with his wife and children recently moved from the Blue Mountains of New South Wales to Eumundi, Queensland, where they now own lots of fruit trees, a tiny horse, some chickens and a grey cat that won't stop peeing on things.