Awful lice around head of Colossus in Rhodes, say (5)
I believe the answer is:
cecil
'rhodes say' is the definition.
(I know that Cecil John Rhodes family name Rhodes)
'awful lice around head of colossus' is the wordplay.
'awful' indicates an anagram.
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'head of' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'colossus' is 'c'.
'lice' is an anagram of 'ceil'.
'ceil' going around 'c' is 'CECIL'.
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for cecil that I've seen before include "Rhodes of Rhodesia" , "Maybe Rhodes" , "Boy" , "Messrs Rhodes and de Mille" , "& 24 Across Colonialist in South Africa" .)