Onset of breathlessness after clown inhales Senior Service and pipe (7)
I believe the answer is:
corncob
'pipe' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'onset of breathlessness after clown inhales senior service' is the wordplay.
'onset of' says to take the initial letters.
'after' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'clown' becomes 'coco' (Nicolai Poliakoff aka Coco the Clown).
'inhales' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are inhaled).
'senior service' becomes 'rn' (abbreviation for Royal Navy. I am not sure about the 'senior' bit.).
The initial letter of 'breathlessness' is 'b'.
'coco' placed around 'rn' is 'cornco'.
'b' after 'cornco' is 'CORNCOB'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for corncob that I've seen before include "Maize ear used for tobacco pipe" , "Off which maize is eaten" , "fodder?" , "Woody centre of an ear of maize" , "Woody part of maize ear" .)