Derivative versus influence

I notice, and I am vain enough to think that some of my readers may also find (actually, I am vain enough to think I have readers, and am diligently failing to install Google Analytics in order to maintain this illusion) that my ramblings vary considerably in voice and style depending on what I have been reading recently. Given I try to read only the finest quality literature, smut and other blogs this should be a good thing, but I have occasionally allowed myself to be a little lazy and actually continue an argument or thought that I read somewhere else, written by wiser fingers than mine. I am not going to stop doing this, as I’d run out of ideas way too fast, but I would like to apologise.
Which I have just done.