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P.S. What les meant about 13a was no doubt that the WHOLE word never has that meaning for us here in "Ye Olde Worlde"! Very strange: had seen it once before only.

One letter missing in one word, and I've no idea what it is (despite les's remark about inappropriate plurals):
38d "Matching pockets, features of pull4 letters
I have ?HIN: chin/shin/thin ???
See no sense whatever!
Please release me, s'one, then I can get on with looking after the latest guests! It's a nice day outside.................................

Sorry, that was "...pull-up" (4 letters) at the end of the clue!

Good thing I checked before I went to bed.

38D - That was my comment about plurals.
The word is CHIN as in a pull-up to a bar.
(an exercise probably neither of us has done in years)

Enjoy the sunshine & your guests. Bon nuit.

Oops. Forgot this.

MatCHINg
"pockets" indicates hidden word.

Thanks for the dig, Syzzie. (By the way, have your hockey fans trashed Vancouver recently?) :] Actually, I suppose it's fair to say that we do like them common. The truly erudite setters of the Atlantic puzzle once included a caveat saying something like: "44a is rare." Even before parsing the clue I saw the words "Greek soldier" and (7) and said to myself, "They can't mean hoplite," but sure enough they did. I think our setters tend to consider the use of an uncommon word a sort of cheap shot. Funny- anyone who does crosswords at the level of the Atlantic's is likely to have a huge vocabulary, but I must say that I've often rolled my eyes at Korean swords and Patagonian lichens.

Re 38a: I thought the same at first, but I think it does work. If you ignore the comma, what you're looking for is the "features" of pull-up: C, H, I, N. (I can just hear my high school gym teacher saying "Do ten chins." Fat chance.)

Re the title: I think it simply refers to "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (sorry, not even attempting italics) and the month's typically busy (read dreadful) social calendar. Common or what?

Re "homely": My father was a sharpshooter in the Marines in WWII and served as a guard to President Roosevelt at ShangriLa. One of his dangerous duties there was helping Eleanor find the wildly famous Scottie Fala whenever he ran off into the woods, so he often chatted with her. He once said to me, "She was a lovely lady, but God was she homely." If you want to know what Americans mean by homely, just look at a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Thanx, you 2 --- would never have seen that in a lifetime! No wonder, mind you: as the Germans like to quote Churchill, "Sport ist Mord" = sport is murder. Prefer the Armagnac & the cigars here personally.............................

Yes, exactly, Aristo: I formulated my explanation badly --- what I meant of course was that the word "homely" in Europe can never mean "ugly"!!!

Thanks for the Rodgers and Hammerstein ref.

38D "pockets" is OK as the indicator, but "features" should have been singular.

Had no idea that "homely" wasn't used that way in the UK. Sorry, Les. You probably wondered what I was on about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj60OAh7O5U

Re hockey: the Canucks didn't do so well, if I read the stats correctly. Don't follow the game.
It was a year before they started prosecuting the punks who trashed downtown Vancouver, even with all the hi-res photos. Canada treads lightly, unlike the Brits who were incarcerating their hooligans the same night. Hooray.

Common words: the cryptics tend to have a good mix. I always enjoy decoding an answer that I haven't run across before, whereas our regular puzzles are overflowing with the likes of ALOE, ETNA, ICE-T, NIN, LEI, & the ubiquitous SST.
I gather the Maleska era was different & Patagonian lichens (LOL) were grist for the mill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_lichen