Wait... Carl, by live and hotmail, do you mean windows live have you on their block list??? If so...
I received a couple of PM notices, and I'm on Windows Live. They were dated 16th of March, so... roughly 2 days before this topic was started. (I'm several hours ahead of forum time. And by several, I mean I'm going to bed when you're waking up.)
Hope this helps.
EDIT: I checked the email address. It's from gmail.
EDIT 2: I also don't have any settings for the forum. Nothing should be causing anything from here to be blocked.