Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[N. Jackson]

The news server (textnews.news.cambrium.nl) that is set as my primary
select method (i.e. in gnus-select-method) seems to have disappeared.

[It's not a terrible loss. I have other news servers in my secondary
select methods that I've been using more and more. One day I would like
to find a good comprehensive reliable news server that I can use for
both reading and writing, but after years of looking I despair of ever
finding such a beast.]

With the server not available, Gnus takes a _very_ long time to start.
(The manual describes some of the convolutions it goes through to find
an alternative news source.)

I tried starting Gnus with `gnus-no-server' but this also disables the
servers for my secondary select methods.

I'm wondering if I can safely set gnus-select-method to null or nil or
something to have Gnus just use my secondary select methods? If so what
would be the syntax?

Something like this:

  (setq gnus-select-method nil)

Thanks for any advice anyone can provide.