Wasn't it John Davies who wrote:
Hi group,
On the above mentioned newsgroup, there are a large number of messages
by "G" to Richard Crisp, a contributor, detailing Hubble Telescope
pictures. As I have a slow dial-up connection these downloads are
causing a major bottleneck in collecting news. Is this peculiar to me,
or is everyone experiencing this behaviour? And, is there anything I
can do about it?

An alternative strategy for accessing binary groups on a slow connection
is to use a separate usenet downloader, such as Grabbit, rather than
your normal text newsreader.
http://www.shemes.com/
This allows you to choose which posts you want to download.

Grabbit is free for normal use, only requiring a subscription if you
want to use the Schemes usenet search facility.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure