Select all fields except one

Hi,

Is there a way of selecting all fields except for one in particular? I'd like to create a query that says something like:

select * except fieldx

What I’m hoping to achieve is a query that can be valid for a number of different tables, although the field I don’t want to select is always called the same (field_not_wanted, for example). I’ve been told that an array could work in this case but I’m not reallly sure about how to go about this.  

 
Cheers,

Matt