forgot to tell you , I was using Nfilter.
That was it. I switched back to the unproxied news server and refilled my
ng.
It works ok mostly, but this is a case where you can't reset and reload.
Also, it has gone a little bonkers and needs reloading itself, had some
unexplained missing messages not show up in OE.
Problem solved. Thanks for suggestions.

A nuisance, but I feel much better now.


Tommy