Mark,
thanks for your comments, I appreciate your interest.

Everything you say is correct but my problem lies in trying to change from my existing avatar (http://www.ybw.com/forums/avatars/1164.jpg) to my new one (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/davelawsonuk/small_skinny.gif ).

To do this I need to go to >User Options and then click a radio button to say I want my avatar to be picked up from the new location which I specify in the box next to the radio button.
I then hit "submit" which should update my settings, however instead I get a 60 second delay before a "Cannot display page" message.