Getting Python to play with Oracle using cxOracle on Mint and Ubuntu

“We need to go through Tow-ces-ter”, suggested Deb.
“It’s pronounced Toast-er”, I corrected gently.
“Well, that’s just silly”, came the indignant response, “I mean, why can’t they just spell it as it sounds ?”
At this point I resisted the temptation of pointing out that, in her Welsh homeland, placenames are, if anything, even more difficult to pronounce if you’ve only ever seen them written down.
Llanelli is a linguistic trap for the unwary let alone the intriguingly named Betws-Y-Coed.
Instead, I reflected on the fact that, even when you have directions, things can sometimes be a little less than straight forward.

Which brings me to the wonderful world of Python. Having spent some time playing around with this language, I wanted to see how easy it is to plug it into Oracle.
To do this, I needed the cxOracle Python library.
Unfortunately, installation of this library proved somewhat less than straightforward – on Linux Mint at least.
What follows are the gory details of how I got it working in the hope that it will help anyone else struggling with this particular conundurum.