THERE'S a Guinness World Record for practically everything, from the weirdest and wackiest to the most extraordinary.

It covers the longest tongue and the greatest distance moonwalked in one-hour to the most tattooed man who has 99.9 per cent of his body covered with a leopard skin design.

Last month Cherries player James Hayter put himself in the record books for notching up the fastest hat-trick in English football history.

Now Bournemouth has gone down in the record books for the second time in as many months after children's book author Jacqueline Wilson's mammoth book signing.

The best-selling writer walked out of Castlepoint's Waterstones store on Monday having unexpectedly chalked up what could be a world record for the highest number of people attending a book signing.

A staggering 3,000 people, mostly children, attended the signing of her new book Best Friends at the store.

Jacqueline began the signing at 3.30pm and continued meeting and greeting her fans until midnight - an amazing eight-and-a-half-hours later.

David Lund, the manager of the Bournemouth Waterstones store, said: "Jacqueline agreed to stay and ensure that everyone in the queue had a chance to meet her. All her fans were very patient."

Now Waterstones has lodged an official submission with the Guinness World Records in an attempt to see the book signing go down in history.

Inga McVicar, from Waterstones, said: "It has taken us by surprise. We did expect Jacqueline Wilson's signings to go really well and we have got another three lined up. We expected to have about 1,000 but to get 3,000 is unprecedented."

A spokeswoman for the Guinness World Record said: "We are looking forward to investigating the claim and hopefully it will soon be a new Guinness World Record."

She added that a team would look into the record and that the applicant would need to provide independent witness statements and visual evidence to support it.