Version 1: Waterloo

In November 2017, I led a derive on Waterloo station at 6pm - the height of the rush hour. At this time, almost everyone on the station is rushing through, intent on reaching a precise spot just before the precise time when their next train leaves. We turned this on its head: we set a precise spot to reach, but agreed NOT to reach it before a distant time. As a result, we took 45 minutes to walk 70 yards. This surely qualifies as the shortest derive in history - in distance, at least. Roughly four feet a minute, or one short step every 30 seconds.

After a while two things happen.

• however stupid you may feel at first, no-one else notices. Your rhythm is too slow for them to see you. They are all rushing to be somewhere by a deadline, or else they are standing still waiting for something to happen. The important thing is to keep walking, however slowly: then you are setting your own time, and not following anyone else's.
How people look depends largely on the pace at which you see them.
• you quickly begin to feel happy at the slow speed. Time ceases to be important. Boredom does not set in. On the contrary, you start to notice how the girders that support the station roof have not been painted for a long time, how a deflated Christmas balloon is still hanging from one of them. People who are standing on the path you are trying to follow, move out of your way a long time before you reach them. Travellers on the concourse below trace out strange patterns, flowing off the concourse like water down a drain. Each of them is an individual consciousness with their own thoughts and experiences. The station is crackling with brainpower on the move. Someone down there has had the best day of their lives; someone else is depressed and fearful for the future. Most are thinking of where they want to be in an hour's time. There is a constant flow, almost all in one direction, until the rush hour starts to weaken.

It does not seem like 45 minutes have elapsed when you decide to stop.

Version 2: Huddersfield

In September 2018 I led a similar derive in the Huddersfield bus station. There is a railway station in Huddersfield: it has a massive facade, opening on to a prestigious square, but behind the facade hides a tiny station. I did a recce the night before: at the height of rush hour a train comes in perhaps every 3 minutes and about 20 people get off.

So we did the derive in the bus station instead, which was a little busier!

But the lasting lesson was how your speed relative to me affects how, and even if, I see you. The camera exaggerates this, but the effect is wider than that.