Transportation of goods involving hothead with gold having left on time (7)
I believe the answer is:
haulage
'transportation' is the definition.
(I know that haulage is a type of transportation)
'gold having left on time' is the wordplay.
'gold' becomes 'Au' (Au is the chemical symbol for gold).
'having left' becomes 'hl' (this could be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'on' means one lot of letters goes inside another (as in clothing 'on' a person).
'time' becomes 'age' (an age is a period of time).
'au' going inside 'hl' is 'haul'.
'haul'+'age'='HAULAGE'
'of goods involving hothead with' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for haulage that I've seen before include "Road transport" , "Transportation of heavy goods" , "Commercial transport of goods" , "Transport business" , "Commercial transportation of goods" .)