Susan Boyle is celebrating a hat-trick of entries in the latest Guinness World Records annual.

The singer, from Blackburn, West Lothian, had the fastest-selling album by a UK female with I Dreamed A Dream and also had the most successful first week sale of a UK debut album.

It sold 411,820 copies in its first week in the UK - almost 50,000 more than the previous record holder Arctic Monkeys.

Boyle's success comes in the same week that she performed her hit song in front of the Pope, at an open-air mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, which 65,000 people attended.

She said: "I used to read this book as a wee girl. I never dreamt that one day I would actually appear in the Guinness Book of Records.

"I only ever wanted to sing and perform. This is truly fantastic."

Oldest chart-topper

Boyle, 49, has also become the oldest person to reach number one with a debut album.

She was 48 when her album went to the top spot, smashing the record set by then 35-year-old reality show star Jane McDonald in 1998.

Other singers to make the record books include Sir Tom Jones, the oldest artist to have a number one single, and Lady Gaga who was crowned the most searched for woman on the internet.