Better use some icon or a proper localizable message instead of a "x" character because the charater features specific semantic. You probably do not want to use an <code>\<a\></code> tag anyway since you are "required" to set the "href" attribute with a value that does not have a prupose in this context. If there is a particular reason to keep the <code>\<a\></code> tag, at least, use <code>javascript:void(0);</code> instead of <code>#</code> (good explanation here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/134845/href-attribute-for-javascript-links-or-javascriptvoid0).
And, like for all the other short-cuts, please use <code>.on()</code>.