Getting a single aggregated item (the most recent)

When I set the pager on and the number of nodes to 1, I get one node/aggregated per page which is what I want.

However, when I use the "insert view" filter to get the feed items into a node, the filter doesn't respect the paging, and I get all the items, not just one.

So far, this sounds like a views question -- but all I ever care about is the SINGLE, MOST RECENT node. Is there a way to either:

1. Query the aggregation tables to get the most recent item (the items aren't timestamped) or

2. Delete the aggregation nodes before they get themed (as far as I've been able to backtrack $node->body, it's markup, so I can't grab the first item of the content array) or

3. Test for success of the feed, delete all the items from the table, and then load the new item? (the nature of the feed is that a single item arrives every hour or so -- the only item I care about) or

4. Set it so that the same feed item node keeps getting overwritten over and over again, so there is only one node, ever?

Thanks for any help you can give...