Bitter about Charlie having to clean and polish (5)
I believe the answer is:
scour
'polish' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'bitter about charlie' is the wordplay.
'bitter' becomes 'sour' (I've seen this before).
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'charlie' becomes 'c' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'sour' placed around 'c' is 'SCOUR'.
'having to clean and' acts as a link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scour that I've seen before include "Rub hard or search thoroughly" , "Turn upside down" , "Clean abrasively" , "Clean by abrasion" , "purge" .)