Couldn't help myself and do a little bit of investigation...
If I look a
Newbie needs serious Help!!, Andy Clough's avatar is a pipe.
If I look at the html, the url of his avatar is...
/users/avatar.aspx?userid=2136&lastmodified=633169092896187215
Not sure why he so many ampersands (looks like a error in the code to me). Anyway, If I stick the the above url into the address bar, prefixed by http://community.whathifi.com/forums (the address of the forum), I can see his avatar.
Not entirely sure why I can't see his avatar in the page (even after a refresh).....but the img url is correct.