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Nice puzzle. But as so often the last step is proving elusive. The wording is somewhat elliptical (well, we expect that), and online representations of the object in question have an identifiable thing which demands to be colored. But "letter"?

Cockie, I think there's only one of the letters in the whole crossword....and it's in the right place.

Yeah. Should have seen that.

Just one or two ? on this one.

The parsing of 3d 'Cold spell that is taking a turn after present times' (6, 2 words).

Got the definition/answer, can see 'that is taking a turn', happy with the extra letter situation etc

The significance of the first word of the revealed words.

Enjoyed it and now know a lot more about the theme - so thanks to Inkling. 👍

@Granama1 IE around ("taking") A G[O], after CE (common era, "present times"), so O extra. Which might update your parsing of 1d (which is not as it first seems) and hence reveal the significance of that first word?

For 3d Common Era for 'present times' comes before 'a' + the two letter 'turn' (with the extra letter).
I think there could be a typo in 2d - 'copy' for 'cop' - because 'ape' gives the wrong extra letter for the required 'n' there (I think the surface is improved by 'cop' too).

Ah, thanks both. Now it all makes perfect sense. It does indeed look like a typo.

Happily it didn't interfere with the end game.

Re 2d, I think the intention is to "split" former and partners' in wordplay with the latter 1 of the usual bridge pairings.

@Ginge That works too! It's a bit clumsier than 'cop' in the sense that 'copy' works so simply - to give the wrong solution, which I'm sure most people had to then unravel to make the hidden word make sense though. (It was my first one entered 😄).

ginge's version of the wordplay works perfectly.