Exclude posts containing certain tags from post listing

Hi guys,

I am using a theme which uses tags to determine which posts appear in three “Featured Post” boxes on the homepage. I have set each box to pick up the most recent post with a particular tag – f1 for the first feature box, f2 for the second, etc.

In the next column are boxes that list the three most recent posts from varying categories. However, I do not want these listings to display posts that are already taking up prominent positioning in the featured boxes.

The code that calls the recent posts from a specified category is:

<?php $recent = new WP_Query(“cat=48&showposts=3”); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>

I have find out how to exclude categories in a piece of code like that, but not tags. How could I modify that code to not display posts with the f1, f2 and f3 tags?

Thank you for your assistance.