Swansea area has been flakey for the last couple of days after being rock solid for many months.
If you're a serious newsgroup user try a premium provider like Easynews.
www.easynews.com
$10 a month for 20 Gigs (about £5.30 at current exchange rates). One advantage of Easynews is their Web based newsgroup search engine, worth $10 a month just for that IMHO.
DW