In the third position, the heel of one foot rests against the instep of the other; both are firmly turned out, and the weight is divided between them.
First he was offered the chance to run for Sudan which he very politely but very firmly turned down for understandable reasons.
Visitors to the sprawling plaza in central Beijing were stopped at checkpoints and searched, and foreign television crews and photographers were firmly turned away.
A reporter who sought on Thursday to drive to Ganzi was halted at a police checkpoint halfway to his goal and, after inspection of his journalist's visa, politely but firmly turned away.
It was during this dismal period that mother and daughters were "politely but firmly" turned out of a hotel in Vermont for being Jewish, in a particularly humiliating but hardly novel display of anti-Semitism.
Music, too, is terrifying: old tunes with intense associations will occasionally come on the radio – songs that must either be loyally sung and danced along to, or firmly turned off.
However, Keith Hill, who was standing down after 18 years in parliament and service in a variety of government roles, including junior minister and whip, firmly turned down a knighthood.
At least, I assume this is what the Royal Collection would say, but then my requests for interviews to the surveyor of the Queen's pictures, Desmond Shand-toylor, and thethe director of the Royal Collection, Sir Hugh Roberts, were politely but firmly turned down.
Twitter, now firmly on the road to IPO, has equally firmly turned its attention to monetisation — which means it's turning on new features that are designed, first and foremost, with advertisers in mind.
The battle had firmly turned in France's favour, but it was far from over.
