ntpd and crond question

[steve%prd.co.uk@localhost (Steve Blinkhorn)]

I have NetBSD 5.1 running on a colocated virtual machine running on a
remote (to me) site.   I am having no success is getting the system
clock to synchronise using ntpd, whereas all my various other systems
are in lock step.   And, at least when the system is idling, crond is
reported as taking about 50% of available CPU time.

The drift in the system clock is very substantial: could this be
because if I use m other systems as peers or servers the distance
(U.K. to California) is excessive?   Perhaps someone could
suggest/offer sites in the S.F. Bay Area to which I could
synchronkise?

I don't understand the crond behaviour - there is little in the
crontabs, there's no queue of jobs wiating to be processed - and
nothing I can seen in the results of a web search that seems to relate
to my situation.

Can anyone suggest a line of attack?

-- 
Steve Blinkhorn <steve%prd.co.uk@localhost>