seems to have a cirular dependency on ntp-simple

It's OK to configure multiple things at once.

Try dpkg --configure -a

I have this problem too, and your suggested fix does not work. I think this bug should be re-opened.

# LANG=C dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ntp-simple:
 ntp-simple depends on ntp-server (= 1:4.2.0a+stable-8.1ubuntu4); however:
  Package ntp-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing ntp-simple (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 ntp-simple

Shawn: you probably have a different error, apparently configureing
ntp-server isn't even attempted... Please post the output of

dpkg -l 'ntp*'

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii ntp 4.2.0a+stable- Network Time Protocol: network utilities
un ntp-doc <none> (no description available)
un ntp-refclock <none> (no description available)
pF ntp-server 4.2.0a+stable- Network Time Protocol: common server tools
iU ntp-simple 4.2.0a+stable- Network Time Protocol: daemon for simple sys
ii ntpdate 4.2.0a+stable- The ntpdate client for setting system time f

A fixed version of the ntp packages has just been uploaded which should
fix this. Please purge ntp-server and ntp-simple with dpkg -P and
install the newer packages when they've been built.

 status FixReleased