clobs clobber dbi ??? Workarounds?

[Fred Bartlett]

Further to my last posting:

when doing a
  select * from <table>
using either cx_Oracle or dbi/odbc fails if the <table> contains a
clob -- cx_Oracle simply raises an application error; dbi is a little
more helpful:
  "dbi.internal-error: [Oracle][ODBC]Invalid column number <num>, in
FETCH",
where <num> is the number of the first clob column.

If one's SELECT statement includes every column name except the
clob's, then it
works.

But I need to get the clob column, too -- how can I do it? Toad and
sql*plus both handle it; what's wrong cx_Oracle, dbi and/or odbc?

Thanks,
Fred