Opera something painful and irritating, amateur collection for the average Joe? (3,2,3,7,7)
I believe the answer is:
man on the clapham omnibus
'opera something painful and irritating' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'amateur collection for the average joe?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'amateur' could be 'ham' (as in ham radio) and 'ham' is found within the answer.
'collection' could be 'omnibus' (I have seen 'Collection of works' mean 'omnibus' so perhaps 'collection' could also mean 'omnibus') and 'omnibus' is found in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is present in the answer.
'joe?' could be 'man' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'man' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?